ASPS 3
by Precambrian Studios
Summary: In the final installment in the series, the ASPS return to Fielding, but a former member threatens to overturn their lives once again with his own splinter group: the Vipers.
1. The Rise of the Vipers

**Two Weeks Before the Start of Junior Year **

His eyes scanned down the contents of the page, drinking in every detail. Occasionally, he would make note of the parts he found more interesting and important, and stored them in the back of his mind...

_November 13, 1997_

_Fielding has a history of violence amongst its students..._

_Last August, the first month of Fielding's school year, the school entered the national lime-light again when several students were fired upon with a paintball gun..._

_Afterwards, Headmaster Michaelas made good on his mandate to update security...bullying only decreased by about 5%._

_...fights had all but disappeared, until one day when senior Dmitri Vagin got into a fight with a blind student who has since left Fielding..._

_...Fielding's reputation as a unsafe school for its students re-surged...parents reported that they would sue..._

_...several other families announced their intentions to sue the school, causing many to question the effectiveness of the policy of Headmaster Michaelas...  
_

He went on to the next article. He found two sentences in particular to be rather interesting

_December 4, 1997_

_Fielding Headmaster Henry Michaelas has announced his intention to resign._

_It is widely believed that Michaelas was in actuality ousted by the Fielding Board of Governors, in order to appease parents filing lawsuits against the school._

He thought, _More likely, it was to protect their own hides. That's interesting. They're like animals backed into a corner. Well, then they should be easy to...ah, there's one more article._

_December 14, 1997._

_Erect yet smiling, gray yet cheerful, new yet strong, Carter Falwell has arrived at Fielding..._

_When asked what he was looking forward to the most, Falwell answered, "Getting to know the students here. From the ones I've met so far, they seem like wonderful people. I'm truthfully beginning to wonder if this whole reputation about bullying is untrue."_

In his head, he reviewed what he had learned about Falwell: a renowned administrator, he had been the Headmaster of Pryor Lazenby's Latin School, an institution infamous for its students' rowdy behavior. He'd managed to quell them in his first year through expensive programs. _So is he inept? A man who solves problems by throwing money at them? Or did he successfully target whatever caused these students to behave so badly?_ He wished he knew what kinds of programs had been enacted, but that information eluded him. He went on to the next link, which lead to a school ranking website.

**March 21, 1998.**

**Top 100 Private Schools in the United States**

**1: Trinity School  
2: St. Sheary's Private School  
3: Gregor Browning Academy  
4: Spence School  
5: Downing Classics School  
6: Grove Hills  
7: Roxbury Latin School  
8: Mulberry Fields  
9: Fielding Preparatory Academy  
10: National Cathedral School**

Some of the comments on the page read, 'Holy sh*t, Fielding went from 1 to 9 in a few months? What the hell happened?'

'Grove Hills beat out Fielding? Ouch!'

'Ha! Bet they wish Michaelas was still around.'

Clicking the link sent from "Baroque-Lover-99," the young man's eyes scanned the last article he'd been sent: a report on Fielding's apparent fall from grace. Three pages long, it detailed the rise of bullying incidents after Falwell's takeover of the school, and his subsequent, _extremely_ controversial action of diverting funds from academics to on-campus security. Cameras, metal detectors, and an even larger police force than ever had quickly made Fielding the safest school in America. It had also quickly earned a new reputation for looking like a prison. Many people said that the only thing was missing was barbed wire along the fences.

"Sir? Yours hours are up," said a female attendant of the internet cafe to the young man sitting at a computer in the corner. He wore a white polo shirt, jeans, aviator sunglasses, and a baseball cap that covered his shaven head. He didn't appear to have heard her. "Sir?" she said again.

The young man jumped in his seat before turning to her. There was a scar above his right eyebrow that shot diagonally down to the left (the attendant's left) before moving upwards, until it was lost under his cap. It looked like a V. "Oh, ah, apologies," he said in a measured voice. "I didn't catch that, what did you say?"

"Your hours are up, sir. You either need to pay for another hour or leave. I know, I know," she said, holding up her hands in apology, "those are sucky terms, but I don't make the rules.

"Oh. "Sorry, I guess I just lost track of time." He turned away to close away all his tabs before turning back around to smile at her. "Thanks for the courtesy. Again sorry."

The attendant smiled warmly back. "That's all right. Must be an interesting subject." She leaned in towards his computer and peered at the screen. "Oh. Fielding. You a student?"

He turned his head slightly to the look at the computer and realized he'd missed a tab. "Going to be soon," he replied as he got rid of the page.

"Well, good for you!" the attendant said encouragingly. "Just prepared to get frisked a lot, though," she chuckled, "I hear the place has become kinda repressive. We get a lotta kids coming in here whining about how its like Alcatraz, or something like that."

"Oh, I think I'll be fine." Checking a battered watch on his left wrist, he took in a sharp breath. "Christ, maybe not; I'm late for my orientation," he said. Picking up a bright green backpack and shrugging it over his shoulders, he gave a polite smile to the attendant, said goodbye, and left quickly.

While he wasn't late for orientation, it would be starting in two hours. He wasn't looking forward to it; while Fielding orientations were always informative, they tended to be slow. While he felt that a review would be needed, there were..._arrangements_ he had to make in advance. _I guess I'll just have to be patient. No problem_. In his mind, he imagined the face of the one he had been waiting to meet: Dmitri Vagin. Scratching at the stubble on his face, he thought, _I am genuinely looking forward to meeting you._ Dmitri was the key. Dmitri would help him to change Fielding.

XXXX

Gage waited in the waiting room of the hospital, flipping through a copy of Tolstoy's War and Peace, his required summer reading for Lawndale O'Neill's advanced placement literature class.

"Frankly, I don't see the point of reading a book without pictures," his girlfriend joked from the chair next to him.

He snorted. "That's because you've never evolved from a second-grade mentality, Jane."

"I take it you never read Alice in Wonderland, smart-ass?"

"I'm a schizophrenic," he reminded her. "I didn't need to read a book to imagine talking cats when I was small."

Crossing her arms over her chest, Jane gave Gage a smug look. "Yeah, well, don't push your luck anyways, mister. Or you'll lose your model for that new dress your making."

"The gibson girl project?" He blew a lock of hair out of his eye. "Then I'll just drag Daria into it."

"You'll _have_ to drag her to make her put on that monst-"

"Hey!"

The two looked up. Wehrung, wearing a leather jacket and khakis, bandages swathing his left eye, emerged from a hallway with a happy grin on his face. "So, I can take it off now!" he exclaimed, gesturing at his concealed left eye.

"Dude! Awesome!" Gage said excitedly. He practically jumped out of his chair. "I've never seen you with two eyes before! Come on, take them off!"

"Yeah, I wanna see the worms," Jane joked.

Wehrung rolled an eye at her. "Ha ha. Okay, here it goes." He wriggled his fingers under the bandage, gripped, and pulled. There was a noticeable tearing noise as the tape tore off from his face. "Ow! Damn it!" He put a hand up to the now-exposed eye and rubbed it. "That hurt…" he groaned.

"Dude! Take your hand off and let's see!" said an eager Gage. H

Wehrung obeyed. His left eye, which had once had a flare shot into it, was now repaired courtesy of the generosity of Michael Harris. Although it had once been dark brown, almost to the point of looking black like its brother, the eye now looked much lighter, almost as if there were a film over it. There was still scarring from burns and where flesh had been crudely stapled around the eye. Half of the eyebrow was still gone. Still, it at least looked leagues better than it once had.

"Looks great, man!" Gage said, giving Wehrung a congratulatory clap on the back. "How well can you see out of it?"

"Better! Not great, but at least I can see at all," said Wehrung happily, before he reached into his pocket. "Hold on a sec guys." He withdrew his eye-patch back on. "Aah," he breathed with relief. "That feels better…...what?" He shrugged as Gage and Jane rolled their eyes at him in sync.

XXXX

"I still have no idea how you managed to drag me into this," Roan Breckenridge groaned to her ward as they walked inside Cashman's Department Store at the Mall of the Millenium. "You must have slipped something into my coffee, that's the only explanation I can think of."

"Don't be such a petit bébé de pleurnicher," Karis, wearing a simple white t-shirt and jeans, said to her older friend. She gestured theatrically to the massive store. "It's nice to go clothes-shopping every now and again. And you can use some new clothes." She eyed Roan's white tank top and jeans, the only kinds of clothes Roan owned that weren't the Fielding uniform.

"Do not," protested Roan.

"Do too," Karis countered.

"I try to be frugal, Karis. I mean, I have nothing particularly against clothes-shopping, it's just that I don't buy what I don't need."

"Smart," Karis admitted. "But still, I think, hm...well, I'm just wondering what we can put on you. Something that makes you look really suave."

"Look, kid, I'll make you a deal; I'll play dress-up for you if you volunteer with me at the shelter tomorrow? Fair deal?"

Karis swallowed. "The shelter? I don't know…" _There are so many people there…._

"Don't worry about it, Chap. You'll probably just help me sort clothes in the back." Roan gave her a reassuring smile. "How 'bout it?"

_Well, as long as I don't have to be around a lot of strangers….bugger._ "Okay," she agreed. She grinned deviously. "Let's find you a tutu first. I'm only joking, mate!" she laughed when Roan's face went milk-white.

XXXX

Smiling, Karis put her finger to her chin as she considered the two outfits Roan was begrudgingly holding up for her. "All right, let's recap," Karis said.

"Shoot."

"You have a very feminine face, accentuated by your pixie cut, but a bit of a masculine build. Kinda buff arms, barely any chest to speak of. Ah, no offense."

"None taken," grumbled Roan sardonically.

"So we can either go with this dress here," Karis said, holding up a matte-black, strapless dress, "which I think will fit you really well. Or…" she nodded her head to the suit. "We can go with this. And if neither of them fit, which I doubt, we can get Gage to do some adjustments. Either way, you'll look pretty sexy."

"Can't I just get a t-shirt?" Roan said in exasperation.

"Nope! Deal's a deal. Pick one."

"Eeny meeny-"

"Roan!" Karis cried in protest.

As she gave Karis an exasperated look, Roan pointed to the dress, just for the sake of getting it all other with. "Great choice!" Karis said excitedly. She picked up her own dress, a small, bright-blue one, and nodded her head toward the door, indicating for the soon-to-be Fielding senior to follow her to the checkout. Roan unceremoniously tossed the suit away and followed Karis to the counter.

Two hours later, they were back at Roan's room in Fielding, wearing the dresses. Roan admired herself in the mirror. "Gotta admit, I make this dress look pretty damn good." She twirled once, then wrinkled her nose. "Mm. This is not the twirly kind of dress. And come to think of it, I'm not the twirly kind of girl."

Giggling, Karis also looked at herself in the mirror, but wrinkled her nose. "Hm. Do I look sexy or cute?"

Roan glanced at her fleetingly. "Cute."

"Aw! How many years do I have to wait until I look sizzling?"

"Never say sizzling again. And ten years. Give or take."

"Gee, thanks." She posed in the mirror, putting one finger to her chin. She scanned herself from fiery head to sneakers, and gave herself an approving nod. "Well...maybe I can live with that."

XXXX

"So, mom. You sure?" Wehrung asked into the receiver of Gage's prized rotary phone, which sat on the desk in the dark bedroom he shared with his friend.

"I'm pretty sure, honey," she answered on the other end.

"It's just that, I have a feeling your bank account would not be happy if I moved back to Fielding."

She laughed lightly. "No, probably not. But again, Alex, it's all up to you. But as long as Mr. Harris has no problem with you staying there, neither do I."

Wehrung bit his lip as he mulled over his potential options for what seemed like the thousandth time. He didn't want to feel like he was imposing on Harris by staying any longer than he had, but it seemed as though Michael didn't mind. And he did like living at Harris Studios, and Fielding was only a short walk away. _Huh. This decision is...easy. That's new._ "I think I'll stay here."

"All right, hon. Not going to tell you not to. So anyways, what's going on witchoo?"

Wehrung talked with his mother for another sixteen minutes. When the conversation ended, he put the receiver down and walked out of the bedroom he and Gage shared, before making his way into the small kitchen, which was located on the other side of the wall with the stairs. Gage and Michael sat at the studio's small picnic table, slurping at soup. Michael looked up at Wehrung with squinting eyes. "So, my boy. What's your final decision?"

Wehrung meekly averted his eyes (he had taken off his eye-patch), and drew circles on the tiling with one foot. "Um...if it's all right with you, I'd like to stay."

"Did I ever object?" Michael said kindly. He stood and walked up to Wehrung, putting one hand on his shoulder and causing the former ASP to look up at him. "You're always welcome here, Alexander. I'm happy to help take care of you, and I know Gage really appreciates having you here. Right, Gage?"

"Hear hear," said Gage, lifting his plastic cup of water into the air.

Michael chuckled. "You see? Now come, have some soup. Gage made it."

"Uh oh," Wehrung said jokingly. He laughed at Gage's slightly hurt expression before sitting down at the table to eat.

"So," Michael said, "You got the dual enrollment essay done?" Wehrung nodded between slurps. "And did you remember to call Michaelas and tell him you're dropping out?" he said to Gage.

"He's not Headmaster anymore, gramps. Carter Falwell is."

"Ah, yes. That's right. Anyhow, did-"

"Yeah, last week. As of tomorrow, I'll no longer be enrolled at Fielding." He went back to his soup. After a few moments, he noticed that the kitchen was silent. He looked up from his bowl and saw that both his adoptive grandfather and friend were staring at him. And he knew why. Rolling his eyes, Gage said, "And I'm absolutely sure about it, this time."

They both gave him a thumbs up before all three of them went back to their soups. After a little while, Wehrung said, "Hey, Gage?"

He looked up. "Yo."

For a moment, Wehrung considered asking him to change his mind. He didn't want to go back to Fielding without his best friend. It could be a scary place to go through alone, and he had to admit he needed emotional support every now and then. And hearing how Fielding transformed from a bully-infested school to a cop-infested one didn't make him feel any safer or braver.

But he saw how much Gage was enjoying the Lawndale life, and he didn't want to take that away from him. _There are more people on this planet than you, remember. _His mother's advice played back in his head in his own voice.

"Wehrung?" said Gage. "What?"

He snapped out of it. "Oh. Sorry. Forgot what I was going to say for a moment." Putting a smile that stretched from ear to ear, he raised his cup again. "Just wanted to say, have a ball."

Gage gratefully returned the gesture. "You too. Knock 'em dead at Fielding."

"I'll try," Wehrung chuckled. The two took long sips.

XXXX

After changing out of their dresses and into more comfortable clothing, Karis and Roan went out for ice cream at Benny's Parlor, a retro diner in uptown Baltimore. Roan drove them both up in her family's beaten sedan. "I've always wanted to have a cone there," she said on the drive up. "My parents raved about it back in the day. My current parents."

Once they got there, Roan had an orange ice cream cone, while Karis had a cup of French vanilla. They sat in the corner of the restaurant, admiring the variety of signed posters that hung, framed on the walls, ranging from Elvis to Nirvana. Then they talked for a while, about classes and homework that they would both have to take. "Are you excited about going to university?" Karis asked later on.

Roan nodded. "I hope that I can go to either Case Western University or Berkeley for Computer Engineering. Writing software, and the like. I want to create practical technologies. Cool ones too. Like those watches you see where people talk into them as if they're phones."

Karis nearly choked on her ice cream laughing. "They'll look like they're trying to eat their own wrists!" She laughed harder when Roan scrunched her face and stuck her tongue at her. Suddenly though, Karis stopped laughing and her face turned red.

"You all right there, ol' Chap?" Roan asked in an accent that came across as more Australian than English.

"Mmp," uttered Karis.

"Brain freeze?"

"Mmp."

"Karis, seriously, you okay?"

"Mmp." She lightly nodded her head to tell Roan to look behind her, which she did. Standing in line for the register was a boy with short, light brown hair that tickled his eyebrows, wearing a beat-up pilot's jacket. Roan's eyes widened at the sight of him.

"Well, how about that. Looks like Armand has the same taste in ice cream as I do." She looked back at Karis, whose face had become as red as her hair. Resisting the urge to laugh, Roan said with a slight smirk on her face, "Ya know, this is like fate or something. Your crush going to the same ice cream parlor as you? One in a thousand, kid. Might as well go and propose to him before he gets away."

"Shut up," said Karis in a hushed tone, as if she were afraid Armand would hear her. When his head threatened to turn in her direction, Karis ducked her own head under the table.

"Usually, you have to drink alcohol to do that, but I guess ice cream will do in this case." When Karis made no reply to the joke, Roan said, "Um, this is a bit much, don't you think? Making eye contact with him isn't going to make you burst into flames."

"Easy for you to say," Karis said from under the table. "You don't know what this is like."

"Having a crush or ducking under a table like you're hiding from the police?"

"The crush, Roan!" said Karis sharply. Roan had admitted to never having felt attracted to any other person her whole life, and it had taken her until the age of sixteen for that fact to stop bothering her, although she sometimes feel a twinge of sadness over the matter.

Roan looked back, and saw that Armand had taken his ice cream with him outside. She turned back, and a wicked idea suddenly came to her. Fighting the urge to laugh, she said loudly and cheerfully, "Hi, Armand!"

BANG! "Ow!" Karis quickly emerged from under the table, her sunglasses slightly askew, rubbing her head. Her were eyes wide with panic. Roan laughed uproariously. When Karis noticed that Armand was nowhere in sight, she grumbled, "Oh, shut up."

"I'm sorry," breathed Roan, who had to bite her fist to stop laughing. "I'm sorry, but that was just too funny."

"Was not," pouted Karis.

Roan gave an intentionally dramatic sigh. "Look, kid, why don't you just talk to him or something? Or actually ask him out? The worst thing he can possibly say to you is no, you know."

"No. The worst thing he can possibly say is that he's already taken and wouldn't go out with me anyway if he weren't."

"From what you've told me, that doesn't sound like him." Karis had gushed to Roan twice about the handsome Armand Chevalier, a French student with a gift for writing, as he had shown many times over in Fielding's prestigious Creative Writing class. Roan had said, "A cute French poet, eh? Get him before he's gone, kid."

Squirming in her seat, Karis said, "I don't know. The only time I've ever talked to him was when I wanted to borrow a pencil from him."

"Don't you have at least three spare pencils in your backpack?" asked Roan. She grinned when Karis nodded meekly. "Well, thinking about it, the worst thing he can actually tell you is that he's gay."

"Bloody hell, don't even joke about that!" She craned her neck to look forlornly at the restaurant's door. "Should I talk to him?" The question was more for herself than it was for Roan.

"Why not? It won't kill you."

For a moment, that piece of advice was enough to get Karis to seriously consider asking out Armand. She had barely risen out of the booth before sitting firmly back in place. "Maybe another time."

Roan shrugged, disappointed. She'd been hoping to see Karis gain a little more backbone over the past year, but it appeared that it wasn't meant to be. Not yet, at least. "Whatever you want, Karis."

"What I'd like is to change the subject, if you don't mind."

"Sure. Whatcha want to talk about?"

"Well….I had an idea about starting a new band."

Roan leaned forward, interested. "Really? What kind of band?"

"Not sure, yet. The question would be, first of all, who would join? I'd be singing in it, because, well, my voice is the only instrument I can use. Would you join? You're an excellent violinist."

"Damn straight! And of course, I'd be happy to join."

Karis made a victorious fist-pump. "Excellent! And if I asked nicely, I bet Wehrung and Gage would join too."  
"So we would have a singer, a violinist, a flutists, and pianist slash percussionist. Kid, better start coming up with folk songs."

"Uh…" Karis grimaced. "I don't listen to those."

"Well, what did you have in mind for a band then?"

"I told you. It all depended on who wants to join."

"If that's all you're gunning for, then folk is probably what you want to gun for," Roan said. "So anticipate doing a lot of wailing."

"Lovely," grumbled Karis, before deciding that it was best not to get worried about such matters yet. "Oh well." She shrugged. With a smile, she raised her sloshy cup of ice cream into the air. "Here's to my first year of high school, and your last, anyhow."

Roan raised her nub of a cone in response. "Hear hear." She swallowed it whole as Karis raised the cup to her mouth, and slurped the melted ice cream, leaving her with a melted ice cream mustache, which Roan giggled at.

XXXX

"I'm truthfully not sure about the look," said the voice that emanated from Gage's telephone. It was on speaker; both Gage and Wehrung listened in. "I can't tell if I like it yet. My mom says she likes it, but moms are supposed to say that."

"You'll fit right in with us," Gage said, even though he also found it hard to imagine Michelle Smith with black hair.

"We can form a new group, call ourselves the blackheads," Wehrung chuckled. The slightly repulsed look on Gage's face made him laugh harder. "Although," he continued, "Karis might feel a bit left out."

"Yeah," Michelle said forlornly.

The two boys exchanged looks. They knew that Karis and Michelle's relationship had become icy once she had left Fielding for the year. Hopefully, it would be easy to mend. "Look, Michelle," Wehrung said. "I'm not sure if you're worried about Karis or not, but she'll be fine with you, trust me. And if not, we'll dress you up in the Tricolour."

She laughed. "You'll have to kill me first."

"How's the eye holding up?" he asked. Wehrung had been both pleased (and somewhat nervous) to learn that Michelle had recently started wearing the artificial 'eye' he designed for her on a near-constant basis when she managed to find a rechargeable battery compatible with its hardware. She was hoping that she could go back to Fielding as a seeing student.

"It's all good," she said. He breathed a sigh of relief. "But I feel kinda bad. I have this awesome thing, and other blind people are still blind. It's almost not fair."

Neither Wehrung nor Gage really knew how to respond to that. Wehrung thought of making a snarky remark, but restrained himself. "I guess," he said indifferently.

Over the line, Michelle's tone brightened. "Sorry, I don't mean to be a downer. You as excited as I am, Wehrung?"

"I'm not jumping over the moon or anything, but yeah, I'm glad to be going back. It's also good to know that Roan's willing to protect both of us from what remains of the Mafia, so no having to worry about having my beautiful face turned into mush."

"Beautiful, huh?" snickered Gage.

"Shut up. So Michelle, got your schedule yet?"

"Yeah. What you got?"

The two relayed what classes they had gotten to each other, and excitedly learned that the had both history and math together. "Thank god," Wehrung breathed. "I suck at math. Now I can copy off you!" he joked.

"I'll intentionally flub all of my answers so you'll flunk out," she replied.

"Aw. You meanie!"

"You're such a little kid," she laughed. "Well, I'm looking forward to seeing you both again, it's been too long."

"Looking forward to seeing you too, Michelle," Gage said. "And I don't know about you guys, but I'm really looking forward to having my first full year of high school without any pranks, flour bombs, beatings, et-cetera."

"Ditto," said Wehrung and Michelle in tandem. "With Fielding under marshall law, I don't think we'll have any excitement anymore," Wehrung said.

"Don't jinx it," Michelle laughed. "Well, I'm gonna get back to packing my stuff. See you two in a week on a move-in day! Bye!"

"Bye!" replied Gage.

"Auf wiedersehen!" chirped Wehrung as the electronic beep indicated that Michelle had hung up.

XXXX

In her room in Bangor, Maine, Michelle Smith looked at herself in the mirror on her wall. The 'eye' she wore on the right side of her head hummed as she thought to herself, _A new year. A nice, quiet year. Studying, SAT-taking, maybe finding a boyfriend. Changes._ She tugged on her black locks. _More time to have fun with friends._ She thought of Karis, and Roan. Roan, her replacement. _No, no._ She swallowed nervously. _You can't replace friends,_ she hoped.

_Right?_

XXXX

"Afternoon, ladies," said the FCPO (Fielding Campus Police Officer) to Roan and Karis as they approached him. He brandished a scanning wand. "Stick out your arms and legs, please."

They complied. "This ain't making me feel much safer, you know," Roan said as the wand glided over her right arm.

"Sorry you feel that way," said the officer absent-mindedly. When he finished scanning them both, he nodded at them to pass.

"God forbid I bring in a new pen," muttered Roan. "I still can't believe that they're legally allowed to do that to us."

"Whatever makes the parents happy, and prevents the school from getting sued. Again," replied Karis.

"I don't know about you, but this year, I intend to fight this bull, however I can."

"Muckraking?" Karis suggested. Roan had just joined the Fielding Boarder as a writer. "Peaceful protest? Self-immolation?"

"That's dark, kid."

"Sorry. Maybe you could run for Student Council President? You're a senior, you're smart, and you're pretty! That gives you a fighting chance."

Roan, flattered, smiled at her friend kindly. "Thanks, Karis. But I'm not all that popular, so I doubt it. Not a bad idea, though. I'll tell you when I've decided how I'm going to topple Foul Falwell."

As they made their way through the quadrangle back toward Blair, they caught sight of a group of approximately twenty strangers being led around by Roan's classmate and former Mafia associate, Julian Townes. He gestured to the surrounding buildings.

"Ah. Must be an orientation tour," Roan concluded. "Those things take forever."

"Mm," Karis hummed. She peered at the new arrivals; ranging from the tiniest sixth-grader to the largest senior, there was an interesting variety: a twitching blonde girl, a boy who looked like he would make a fine lax bro loudly shouting questions to Julian, a young man with an ugly red scar that ran alongside the right side of his bald head, three completely identical Japanese girls distinguished by their different pairs of glasses, and to Karis's surprise, a female albino. Like her, she was wearing sunglasses. "Look like an interesting bunch."

"Yip."

Once they reached Blair, Karis and Roan hugged each other. After thanking Roan for ice cream, Karis made her way inside, maneuvered by Zara Wehrung's water-gun-wielding sentries, and made her way back to her room, where she flopped onto her bed and stared at the ceiling. _School starts again soon,_ she thought. _Hope being a high-schooler will be less eventful than being a middle-schooler. It should be, though_. The Mafia were gone. The ASPS had been disbanded as a group. And even though Fielding was now half-prison, Karis had to admit, she actually felt safe for once. _It will be. It will be._

XXXX

"Thank you everyone," Julian said pleasantly as his tour concluded. "You're all going to have a great time, here. Fielding is one of the best schools in the country, and your experience will definitely reflect that. I'll see you in class! Fielding, Fielding, rah-rah-ree!"

Nobody repeated the chant, to his mild mortification. It was to be expected, though; incoming students had yet to accumulate their own sense of spirit. As the group began to break up, Julian prepared to head back to his fellow FTC members, when one student approached him. "Excuse me, Townes?" It was the young man with the sunglasses and the scar. Smiling, he extended his hand, which Julian shook. "That was a good tour."

"Why, thank you! It's not often I get a compliment."

"I can imagine. I was wondering if you could do me a favor?"

"And what would that be?"

The scarred teenager reached into his pocket and produced a folded piece of paper, which he handed to Julian. "Would you mind reading that, please?"

"Um...all right?" Both curious and mildly concerned, Julian unfolded the binder paper and read it. Written in dark, immaculate cursive, was, _I know you were part of the Mafia. You will do as I say or I will rat your sorry behind out to Falwell._ Feeling his hands tremble from both a stabbing sense of fear and anger, Julian looked up at the scarred boy, who maintained his pleasant smile, which Julian realized was sarcastic. "What do you want?" he asked through gritted teeth.

Shrugging, the scarred boy said, "It's rather quite simple. I want to meet Dmitri Vagin. And soon, if you dont mind."

XXXX

"Look, Ben, I know that things have rough between us, but I don't suppose we can-"

"It has nothing to do with _us_, Dmitri, whatever the hell that means," said the voice from the other end of the phone line. "It has to do with the fact that you're still a laughingstock with all the Mafia off-shoots. You got your ass kicked by a blind girl, and you couldn't even beat that girl using that nasty cane of hers. Nobody will take The Black Hand seriously if you're in it. Sorry, but no. Goodbye."

"Ben-" the line went dead. Dmitri cursed and violently threw his phone across the room. "Screw you then!"

Ever since Dmitri had very publicly lost to Michelle Smith in their fight, he had instantly become a pariah. He went from a feared and respected leader of a feared and respected secret society to a joke. Absolutely none of the Mafia splinter groups accepted him, choosing instead to treat him as if he was the lowest common denominator in the social order. In a vain attempt to try and regain his social-standing amongst his peers, he had picked a fight with Henry Collins, one of Fielding's most notorious homophobes, and won. To his shock, it had little to no effect. He later learned that Henry had just been expelled and was in the process of moving out when he beat him up.

As he tried to formulate more plans on how he could be re-accepted by his old friend, Dmitri heard a knock at his door. "Hello?" he said. "Who is it?"

"Dmitri? It's Julian. Can I come in?"

"Oh, hey Jules. Sure, give me a moment. He jumped out of his chair, unlocked the door, and before he knew it, he had been grabbed. "What the hell, man?" he exclaimed. Before he could resist, whomever had grabbed him did it first and slammed him against a brick wall roughly. The back of his head hit the wall hard, and he felt his vision blur. His attacker held his shoulders in an iron grip.

"...gonna...kill you…" Then he saw who it was. "Jules? Why-"

His friend's expression was apologetic. "I'm sorry, Dmitri. I-"

"He works for me now, and soon, so will many of your old lackeys," said an icy voice that came from a tall young man standing behind Julian. "I decided I needed a henchman. I was never good at physical intimidation, and considering my own physical well-being...well, let's just say that I won't be doing push-ups any time soon."

As his vision began to blacken, Dmitri felt a slap across his face. The scarred teen was now mere inches away from him. "You're not going to pass out on me, Vagin," said the cold voice. "There are so many things you and I need to talk about. And we will start with what you did to the ASPS."

For a moment, his vision began to clear, and Dmitri got a better look at him. He easily towered over Julian, his face was unshaven and his skin pale. The red scar seemed to throb angrily. "Whoever you are," Dmitri said, slurring his words, "I'm not talking to _you._"

"Oh, you will, Mafia boy. But perhaps not willingly. I'll personally make sure of that," said his attacker. His lips contorted into a vampiric smile.

Then Dmitri finally passed out.

XXXX

"Wake up, Vagin." He slapped the bound Dmitri across the face, causing the former Mafioso to awake with a start, groaning from his pained skull. Looking around, he saw that he was in a cold, damp room; one of Fielding's many abandoned storage basements. "Don't worry," said the scarred young man. "You don't have a concussion. Good thing too, because I would like you to have a clear head."

"Who the hell are you, and why do you have me tied up, you goddamn bastard?" Dmitri snarled, struggling at the ropes that bound him to the chair. When he noticed that Julian was in the room, he spat at him. "You son of a bitch. You taking orders from this pasty-faced dreck? You're a little bitch too." As he spat out the insult, his fingers worked behind him, trying to undo the knots that bound him.

The skin under Julian's eye twitched. "These last few months haven't been good to you, man."

"You!" interjected the scarred teen, pointing a finger at Julian. "Don't talk, please. I want to have a one-on-one with our prisoner." He turned back to Dmitri, arms crossed over his chest, giving him a look one might give a cockroach. "We've never met, but I know who you are. You're Dmitri Borya Vagin. Former leader of the Mafia, a position you held for two years. Now the laughingstock of Fielding's gay community." He stared off into space, as if reconsidering. "Actually," he said, "the community in general."

"Am I supposed to be impressed by that, or something? Look, ass-wipe, just so you know, once I get out of these ropes, consequences be damned, I'm going to beat you to a pulp."

The scarred teen gave him a vacant stare. "I took you for a calculating leader, Vagin. Not an idiot. This is disappointing." He glanced at Julian. "Isn't he disappointing? Oh, right, I told you not to talk. Never mind."

"You're a wacko," Dmitri said. At this point, he had given up trying to untie himself; the knots were resilient.

Running a hand over his bald head, the teen said, "Perhaps. But enough with the insults, I don't have all day. You and I have personal business to address."

Squinting at his captor, Dmitri asked, "Do I know you, ass-wipe?" He was sure he would have remembered someone with such a flashy scar.

"No," said the scarred boy, "but you know my friends. The ASPS." He took off his aviator glasses, tucking them in the front of his shirt. In the darkness of the room, the yellow eyes glowed spitefully. "And I am here to take up revenge upon you on their behalf."

Dmitri's heart skipped a beat as he realized who he was talking to. "No," he said in disbelief. "No. Nonono. No way. You got hit by a car, you're a vegetable, the Boarder reported on it-"

"I _was _in a car accident," Ethan Dressler said as he rubbed at the angry red V painted onto the right side of his forehead. "And I _was_ in a rather deep coma, but I was never a vegetable. After I woke up, I made contact with my...contact. My Mafia contact." When Dmitri's eyes widened momentarily, Ethan gave him a wide, knowing grin. "Yes, Vagin. Your ranks were not as impenetrable as you thought. Anyhow, they told me what you did to my friends. Smith and Wehrung had to leave because of you. You tortured Wehrung, beat Smith, bullied Chapman." Ethan crouched. His face was mere inches away from Dmitri. "Now," he said quietly, "I must say I'm tempted to return the favor."

Dmitri spat into his face. For a moment, Ethan's face contorted with rage, and he raised his hand to strike Dmitri across the face, until he he managed to control his temper at the last second. He put on a fake smile. "I'll forgive you for that, Vagin. But if you do anything else to annoy me, I wont be so forgiving." His tone became business-like. "Now, I'm going to tell you the same thing I told Townes. I know you are part of the Mafia, and I have actual proof." That was a lie; he had no proof, but it was better to make him believe he did. "So you will do exactly as I say, or else I turn you into Falwell. And believe me, Mafia boy, I would happily do so as recompense for what you did. So, I need you to do something for me. Townes?"

The large senior begrudgingly approached with a clipboard and pen, which he handed to Ethan. The towering soon-to-be junior said, "I want the names of every single former Mafia member."

When Dmitri just snarled at him, Ethan said impatiently, "I don't have all day."

"Why don't you ask Julian, genius?" snapped Dmitri.

"I'm not stupid, Vagin. I know that Mafia members are deliberately prevented from knowing the identities of all other members, lest one of them rats them out. My contact told me so. As their former leader, I know you would have all the names. Now cough them up."

Dmitri tried to spit in Ethan's face again, but his target was too high. "I'll give you one last chance, Dmitri," Ethan said in a deadly voice. "Otherwise I will torture you using what you fear the most. And believe me, I know what it is. It's in there." He pointed to the corner of the room, where a box no larger than apple sat. "This is your last chance."

His captive remained silent. Ethan sighed and said, "Suit yourself." He walked into the corner of the room, where the large box sat. Slowly, methodically, he opened it and reached his hand inside it, gingerly lifting out its contents.

Dmitri screamed.

XXXX

When it was over, and Dmitri was left a shuddering husk, Ethan signaled for Julian to follow him outside. Ethan shielded his eyes against the blinding sunlight.

"Tarantulas," Julian said, impressed, although he kept his expression neutral. "How'd you know?"

"I didn't," Ethan grumbled. "It was a _very_ lucky guess. Most people have some degree of fear for spiders. I myself cannot stand the sight of a daddy-long-legs." He looked at the list of names in his hand with a blank face. "Well, that's step one down. Now I just need to find out where all of these splinter groups meet. There's five of them, so chances are I'll be able to find at least one without a problem."

"And what exactly do you plan to do when you meet them? Or am I not allowed to ask questions?" said Julian icily. Deep down, he hoped that Ethan would be pummeled as soon as he showed up at one of these secret meetings, but he had been comatose when the ASPS had struck out against the Mafia. They would be suspicious, but not openly hostile.

Ethan gave him a passing glance before looking back at the names. "I expect we'll be in each others' company for a while, Julian. Yes, you may ask questions. And when I meet your friends, I plan to bring them into a new group I'm forming."

"What for?"

Ethan looked at his watch. "_That_, I'll tell you later." He put his aviators back on. "I'll call you when I need you again. In the meantime, do me a favor and go untie Vagin before he wets himself. And while you're at it, tell him I'm not done with him." With that said, he stalked off, reviewing his goals in his head.

_First of all, I have to move into my new dormitory. Hopefully, Falwell will be as incompetent as I've heard, and I can coerce him into getting my room in Warville back. After that, I will form the Vipers. We will get rid of Falwell, and any other administrator who does not hold up to par. And then, hopefully, I can get some peace. _

As he made his way to Fielding's main office, he maneuvered around the crowds of students moving into their dorms, running to greet friends, trying to keep up with orientational tours. Most students wouldn't come anywhere near him; his height and scar were more than enough to give him a wide berth of space. He wouldn't have cared, until a red-headed girl much smaller than him, also wearing sunglasses, took one look at him and ducked behind a taller girl with platinum-blonde hair and diamond-shaped earrings Ethan did not recognize. But he recognized the red-headed girl.

For a moment, he was tempted to call out to her, tell her who he was, ask her how she had been. But a fear suddenly took hold of him. After all this time, what would she say to him? He had barely known her in the first place. Would she even be glad to see him?

Karis was already gone before he had stopped his panicked pondering. Ethan swallowed before continuing on, while wondering if he could even face Michelle, Wehrung, or Gage at this point either. He did not know.

XXXX

"The Black Hand, seven members, all low-level Mafia," Ethan recounted to Dmitri, who sat uneasily on a stool in front of him in the cold basement. The former leader of the Mafia had been ordered personally by Julian to appear before Ethan; otherwise, he'd have spiders unleashed into his room at a random time. The thought of huge, hairy tarantulas in his bed was enough to make Dmitri tremble.

Ethan continued, "They meet on weekends in the Ransom lounge, which tells me they are not operating at a particularly high level; otherwise they wouldn't be out in the open like that. Here's the list of names." He handed a clipboard to Dmitri, who took it begrudgingly. "Anything I ought to know about them?"

Dmitri scanned the list quickly. "I'd guess that Greg Hamill is the leader. He always was a good team player. Organized."

"Anything else?"

"No. Like you said, low-ranking. Apart from Greg, they were pretty much honorary members under our protection. If I were you, I wouldn't waste my time with them."

"You're not me," Ethan said haughtily, "and the day I take advice from you is the day I jump off a cliff."

Dmitri leaned forward. He had a confident sneer on his face that irritated Ethan. "You act like you're superior to me, Dressler. Hate to break it to you, but you're not. You're just as equal an ass as I am-"

He stopped talking when the spit flew into his eye. Ethan said with a snarl, "You almost killed Michelle Smith. I've never actually tried to murder anyone, you filth."

Wiping the spit out of his eye with his sleeve, Dmitri countered, "First of all, that was a stupid mistake on my part; I'm man enough to admit to that. I was just trying to scare Michelle, believe me. And second of all, heh, look who's talking! You kidnapped Sue Bentley and held her hostage with a fake gun."

The skin below Ethan's eye twitched. Dmitri felt a small stab of triumph. "Yeah, jackass. You're not the only one with spies. I know what you've done, too. Enough to put you in juvenile hall for quite a while. Extortion. Blackmail. False imprisonment. Assault. And believe me, when this is all over, I will make sure you get the book thrown at you. And I'll be there to watch your sorry ass get dragged off, and see you crying like the little bitch you are." Dmitri leaned back, a victorious smile on his face. He had been waiting to say this for a while, and now he even had an audience for it: Julian had been standing in the corner of the basement the whole time, watching. And if Dmitri knew one thing, it was that Ethan hated to be humiliated.

He was right. Too right. Ethan slowly turned to Julian with a blank expression on his face; it was an indecipherable mask. "Townes, do me a favor. Break his index finger."

Their faces paled. "What?" Dmitri and Julian said in hushed tones at the same time.

"Are you deaf? Break his finger. Now. Or else Falwell will be hearing of your actions as a member of the Mafia, Townes."

Julian's hands tightened into fists; he was beyond furious. He either had to hurt his friend, or possibly face expulsion after being ratted out. Slowly, he looked back and forth from Ethan's stoic face, to Dmitri's, which had a rapidly-growing concerned look on it. Julian made a choice. He slowly shuffled towards Dmitri.

"No, no!" Dmitri cried. He stood and backed away into the corner. "Come on, Jules! Don't do this! We've known each other for too long! You can't choose this little piece of crap over me! Jules! JULES!"

"I'm sorry." He reached for Dmitri's hand.

Laughter.

Hollow and thin, it cut through the air like a dull knife. Julian and Dmitri both looked at Ethan as he howled with what seemed to be a combination of maniacal laughter and the coughs of someone with bronchitis. As suddenly as he had started cackling, he stopped. "Forgive me," Ethan said. "I just became aware of our similarities, Vagin. We have both been out of power now, and we have both tried to regain power at some point, I assume. We have both done things we are not particularly proud of, and we both have the conviction to see our goals through to the end. We are very much alike. I hate that. The irony of it just seemed amusing.

"But just to determine whether or not we _are_ as alike as I think, I ask you this, Vagin: would you have _my_ fingers broken?"

Dmitri's eyes anxiously darted back and forth between Ethan and Julian. Ethan rolled his eyes. "You can back off now, Townes."

Julian obeyed, casting a dirty glance in Ethan's direction as he did so. "Well, Vagin?" I'm wait-"

"Yes." The answer had come out as somewhat hesitant, but Dmitri had no doubt in his mind. "You're damn right I would," he said in a slightly tremulous voice. "Every single one of them. And your toes."

Ethan shrugged. "Then I don't see any particular reason for you to be all that upset. This is what happens to someone who has lost the power struggle: they get scared with large spiders and cower in corners. You've been in a leadership position; I thought you would know that by now. Perhaps not.

"I will give you credit, Vagin. You had ambition. You might even have some talent. But you lack planning and organizational skills. That is your fatal flaw."

Dmitri crossed his arms over his chest while giving a steely glare. "Really? I think I did pretty well for myself."

"Really?" Ethan let out another empty laugh. "If that's true, how come we have Carter Falwell instead of Henry Michaelas? How did you let the ASPS beat you? Why aren't _you_ sitting in this chair?"

Dmitri was silent. "Exactly, Vagin," Ethan continued. "You screwed up, and look at you now. Look at _me_. I came back from a hospital in California after being hit by a car, several months behind on my education, not having had any contact with Fielding since I left, and here. I. Am. _My_ organizational skills are better than yours. I plan ahead. I plan for setbacks.

"And let me educate you on something. This is not about breaking fingers. It is about being in the _position_ to break fingers. I _can_, but in the end, what's the point? I'd be conceding that you have the upper hand over me; you'd be able to manipulate me emotionally. And you'd be walking around the school with a cast on your hand that would be a little trouble to explain.

"Anyhow, I can see multiple possibilities ahead of me, and you can't. I'd love to explain to you what I have planned, Vagin, just to see the look of slack-jawed awe on your face. But that would be a colossally bad idea, so I'll keep you in the dark. I might reconsider if your level of importance ever becomes relevant again."

The former leader of the Mafia was at a loss for words; he'd been insulted, humiliated. He was in the grip of some straight, spoiled brat. He felt angry and powerless.

Ethan extended his hand. "My clipboard, please."

Dmitri looked down at his hand, and saw that he was still holding it. Slowly, begrudgingly, he brought it to Ethan. Once he took it, Ethan smiled in his vampire-like way, as if he had accomplished some great feat. "Thank you, Vagin." He looked to Julian, and nodded his head toward the door. They walked out, leaving Dmitri in the cold basement that had once served as the Mafia's headquarters.

"You know," Julian said once they were a considerable distance away from the basement, "I thought you were really going to have me break his fingers-"

"I need you to do me a favor, Townes," Ethan cut him off. "Tomorrow, I want you to go and gauge these three people. Just give me your general impressions of them." He handed Julian a small slip of paper. "I want to see if they are good candidates for leadership positions within the Vipers."

Julian read the list. _Dominic Ackermann, Quentin Palladino….Roan Breckenridge?_ His heart skipped a beat. _Wait, does he know that Roan was in the Mafia? _He found himself asking, "Why these people?"

"I've encountered them before. My general impression was that they wanted to make change. And that's what the Vipers will do. I just want to get a second opinion before official recruitment. Oh, and I considered Hemming at one point, but she was a little too madcap for my tastes."

Julian tried to read Ethan, but he was as blank as ever. "All right," he said quickly. "I can do it."

Ethan looked down at Julian with an arched eyebrow. "You sure?"

"Yeah, it's no problem." _But I have to make sure Roan doesn't become a Viper..._

Ethan shrugged. "All right. Time to get to the last order of business, then. Let's pay the Black Hand a visit."

XXXX

Once they had reached the Ransom building, Ethan turned to his conscripted bodyguard. "I'll need you to stay outside, Townes. I must talk to them alone."

Julian sighed tiredly. "Why?"

"If this turns out how I think it will, then I'll let you know."

"Why can't you just tell me now?" asked Julian impatiently.

"Because time is of the essence."

Julian glanced at his watch. "It's two in the afternoon. On a _Saturday._"

"Fair point. I still won't tell you. Feel free to sit on that lovely-looking bench over there." Ethan quickly disappeared inside the dorm, leaving Julian alone and mildly frustrated.

Knowing precisely where to go, Ethan took a left at the front desk, walking down a long hallway, before stopping at the fifth door. He tried the knob, which didn't budge. He gave five impatient knocks. A long-haired Asian boy slightly opened the door and looked Ethan up and down. "Who're you?"

"I'm the Vampire of Fielding. Got any sugar?" Ethan said dryly. He felt a little disappointed that he was not immediately recognized, considering that he was wearing his signature suit.

The boy disappeared, and in his place stood Cheten Aziz, one of Ethan's former classmates. "Well, holy crap," said Chetan. "What the hell are you doing here, Dressler? Last I heard you were being fed with tubes."

"I can imagine, Aziz. Dmitri Vagin directed me here. I wish to talk to the Black Hand."

Surprise briefly registered on Chetan's face, before he said brusquely, "The Black Hand has no further business with Dmitri Vagin." He tried to shut the door, but Ethan had jammed his foot in front of it.

"I am not here on Vagin's behalf. I am here to make your organization an offer. And I wish to specifically speak to Greg Hamill, if he's in."

Cheten looked behind himself, then back to Ethan. "Hold on a sec." He shut the door. Ethan impatiently tapped his foot as he waited, counting the seconds in his head. After preciseley two minutes and forty-nine seconds, Chetan reappeared. "Okay, he'll see you. But you have to agree to a pat-down."

Ethan very nearly laughed out loud. "A pat-down? You honestly don't think you're _that_ important, do you?"

"Pat-down or a punch in the mouth, Ethan. Pick one."

"Tch. Fine. Pat-down. May I come in now?"

Chetan allowed him in. Immediately, Greg Hamill, a tall senior with hair tied into a ponytail walked up to him. "Arms and legs out, Ethan."

He obeyed. Greg skimmed his hands along Ethan's limbs and torso swiftly. Within a few moments, he was satisfied that the towering junior had nothing to physically threaten them with and stepped back, collapsing into a couch. Seven pairs of eyes were now on Ethan. "All right then," said Greg. "Get it over with."

"All right then, I'll get straight to the point. I am here to make your organization an offer, Greg," Ethan said flatly. "I am forming a new organization. You will be a part of it, and will follow _my_orders. The ultimate goal of my organization is to torment the Tops as much as humanly possible. And I believe that, overall, we will work to shape Fielding into a better place doing so."

"And why exactly would we work under _you_?" said a boy with a very effeminate hair-style. "I mean, hey, we hate the Tops as much as anyone else, but still."

Ethan shrugged. "Because I'm smarter, richer, and have a more defined goal than Dmitri Vagin ever did, and for that matter, whoever else is running a Mafia splinter group now. You don't have to join me, and I will not expose your identities to Falwell if that's your choice. But if you choose to rat _me_ out….well, first of all, that would be stupid, considering I haven't done anything. But if you try, I will bring _your_ heads not to Falwell, but the Lawndale Police Department. I have no doubt that the families of the students you have harassed would be more than happy to sue you to within an inch of your lives. So. Who wants to be part of this little camaraderie, eh?"

He scanned the room. Nobody raised their hands, apart from a tentative middle-schooler, who shrunk and put down his hand after receiving a glare from one of his comrades.

"Not that it's a bad offer," said Greg, "but frankly, we don't want to be a part of anything that has to do with _you_. You're a prick. An insufferable prick, hate to break it to you. You threaten _us_for what we've done, with all the crap that _you've_ done? The constant put-downs, the passive-aggressiveness, insults, and more? It would surprise me if there was one person in this whole school who would be willing to spend more than a few seconds with you. The Black Hand says no. Please show yourself out."

His expression remained stoic, but within, Ethan fumed. He was not used to being rejected in such a manner. No, he was not used to being _defied_. He thought, _Perhaps I am not as imposing as I thought I was. Funny, I thought having a gigantic red check-mark on my face would make me appear even more intimidating. Well, perhaps an authoritative approach is too much. I'll take note of that._

Ethan straightened his tie. "Well, can't get them all. Thank you for your consideration." He walked out.

XXXX

Ethan came out of Ransom, a slight frowned pressed into his face. He walked over to the bench where Julian was sitting. "Didn't work out, huh?" Julian said.

"Very astute, Townes." Ethan slumped onto the bench next to Julian, who scooched an inch away. "No, it did not. I anticipated it wouldn't."

"Then I assume you're going to pull another one of those multiple possibilities you were talking about earlier out of your hat?"

"Exactly. That's where you'll come in."

"What?"

"Don't gawk, Townes. It doesn't suit you. I deliberately chose this group first because I knew they would be the least suitable to my plans, so if they refused to join me, it would be of little consequence. To that end, I lied to them about what the groups was all about. I was testing the waters, so to speak. I can infer, based on how I was just received, that most of the other splinter groups will refuse to join the Vipers, because I am, well, _unpopular._ Therefore, I want you to speak in my stead. You are not to bring up my name, imply my involvement, and above all else, _never_ mention the ASPS. The Vipers must seem like _your_ idea. You will be a sort of puppet...no. A figurehead. I will be in the shadows, operating unseen. Through you, I will give orders and distribute plans. Information. And I will make sure your efforts do not get in the way of your schoolwork. I don't expect you to manage the Vipers constantly for me.

"Now, I understand that this is probably the last thing you want to do-"

"You've got that right," said Julian. "Not only working under you, but I don't want any of these kids ratting _me_ out if something goes wrong-"

"Did anyone rat each other out in the Mafia?"

"Well...no."

"Then they won't here either. And on the off chance someone does, it should be easy enough to suppress them. From what I've seen and heard, you were all very good liars; I'm sure a decent smear campaign would be manageable. Now, I'll write you up a script and send it to you. Start rehearsing it as soon as possible, because I'd like you to approach the Dons by next week. This coming Friday, if possible. And there are those few people I'd like you to check up on in the meantime, as well. Until then, Townes." Ethan turned on his heel and walked back to Ransom.

When he was gone, Julian pursed his lips and thought, _I have to admit, I have no problem with his goals. And getting most of the Mafia back together would be nice, even if we don't call ourselves the Mafia anymore. But I still don't like the idea of being under this guy's thumb. What do I want? What do I really want?_

_For one thing, I want to see his plans spectacularly fail. To see them go up in flames and watch as that stupid, passive look finally gets wiped off his face. Or..._

_Or I get him out of the way and take over the Vipers for myself._

**Three Weeks Later**

As her vision began to darken, she reached into her right pants pocket where the battery was kept and pulled the cord. Immediately, she was blind again. Taking out the battery and gingerly placing it on the seat to her right, Michelle Smith withdrew another battery from her backpack and plugged it into the cord that led from her 'eye': a small digital camera tied to her head labeled WV. Within seconds, a pixelated view of the world returned to her. In the corner of her vision, she saw, "15 hours remaining." Deciding that she did not need to see at that very moment, she turned off the camera.

As nothingness enveloped her vision once again, Michelle's thoughts turned back to her friends. She was genuinely excited to see them after all this time, but was still nervous about how Karis would receive her. _But if she's still mad at me, who's at fault? I don't think I acted all that selfishly, and yeah, she has the right to be at least a little mad. But shouldn't she have let it go by now? _She nervously pulled at the collar of her t-shirt. _I hope so. _

"We're here, miss," said her cab driver as he pulled over to the curb. "Fielding Preparatory Academy."

_Deja vu. _She flicked a switch on her 'eye,' reactivating it. Sure enough, she was in the exact same spot where she had first arrived in, almost two years ago. "Thanks," she said courteously to the driver. She paid him, stepped out, retrieved her two duffel bags of luggage from the trunk, and started toward Blair to move in to her new room.

She had barely taken a few steps when she heard, "MICHELLE!"

"Wha-" she let out a cry of surprise as Wehrung appeared out of nowhere and practically tackled her for a hug.

"Squeeze!" he exclaimed as his embrace tightened.

Laughing, she gave him a pat on the back. "Glad to see ya too. Ow. Watch the ribs."

He stepped back, and she got a full look at him. "Liking the goatee," said Michelle. She pointed at his eye. "And I hear you got that fixed up?"

Nodding, he briefly flipped up the patch, revealing the light-brown eye. "I'll never see as good out of it again, but hey, it's better than nothing." He let the patch snap loudly back into place. "Ow." He winced. "Well, I'm still wearing this because I'm used to it. Hey, cool new hair color." He nodded at her dyed-black locks.

"Thanks! Hey, Gage around?"

"Oh, uh, no. He had to go and get a refill of his anti-freakout meds. Driving there himself, I think. Hey, you need help with your bags?"

Smirking, she said, "Sure!" before tossing them both to him. Wehrung yelped as he caught them both. Their weight immediately began to put a strain on him. Knees buckling, he groaned, "Um, I guess I can take...whew, thanks." Michelle relieved him of one bag.

As they walked to Blair, Wehrung asked, "So, how was Perkins?"

"Great! It was nice to be back in the company of other visually-impaired people. You know, more people I can relate with. I didn't use the eye very much, though. I felt more than a little privileged using it, so I stuck with the new cane."

"New?"

"Yeah, I got rid of the old one. I wanted a clean break from Fielding, threw it out. I did take the new one with me, though. It's also collapsible, but it's plastic. Not aluminum."

"Gotcha. So, you excited to be back?"

She shrugged. "Give me a week, and I'll have an answer for you. I've heard the school's gotten safer at the cost of personal privacy."

"Yeah," he admitted, "it has gotten a little more oppressive. Searches, curfew hours, metal detectors-"

"Pff, that's only a little?"

It was his turn to shrug. "Hasn't bothered me, personally. Oh, by the way, I saw Karis and Roan about half an hour ago. I told Karis you would be here soon."

Michelle's heart skipped a beat. "How'd she react?" she asked quickly.

"Well, she smiled, said she'd be glad to see you."

"Oh."

Detecting the disappointment in her voice, he said, "You know, considering what it was like when you two saw each other last, I'd say that's pretty good."

Even though she had hoped for a warmer reaction, Michelle accepted his words, knowing that it was impossible for everything to turn out exactly as she envisioned. Taking a deep breath, she thought to herself, _Remember, look on the bright side_. Smiling, she said, "Well, let's go see her then. We can drop off my stuff on the way there, too."

"Really? Huh. All righty. Lead the way, oh great Smith."

_Lead the way,_ she thought with a smile. _I could get used to that. _

XXXX

Roan looked at herself in the mirror on the wall of her dorm room. "You know, I don't say this particularly often, but wow. I look good."

A flattered Karis, who had chosen Roan's outfit (a maroon blazer, a matte-black button-up shirt and matching pants), smiled with pride. "You'll knock 'em dead at your speech today."

"Well, I think I'll have to make an impression with words as opposed to what I'm wearing, but thanks, Chap." Roan ruffled her friend's red hair, resulting in a giggle. The senior stepped away to button up her collar.

"Well, Roan, I gotta say I'm kinda surprised you're really going for this, now," Karis admitted. "I mean, because, I kinda always thought you got your way through intimidation at knife-point."

"Please don't remind me of that," Roan pleaded, wincing. "I _do_ regret that, you know."

Karis shrunk. "Sorry."

"It's all right," said Roan. "But yeah, I want to start changing things through rational means." For a while now, Roan had felt like she had to make a change to Fielding; that if it weren't for her threatening Karis, the chain of events that led to Falwell's takeover of the school would not have occurred. "Besides," she said, smirking ironically, "I don't think the other kid I'm running against would take too kindly to having the tip of a blade pointed in his face."  
She cracked her neck and turned to Karis. "How do I look?"

Karis tapped at her chin as she pondered. "Hm...undo the last button. You look rather stuck-up with that thing around your throat."

Roan did so. "All right," she said as she confidently cracked her knuckles. "Ready to make my speech. Wish me luck, okay?"

"I will. See ya."

Roan opened the door, only to be met by Michelle Smith's knuckles. "Oh!" went Michelle, quickly withdrawing her hand, waving it awkwardly. "Hey, Roan." It was the first time the two had seen each other since Roan had been hospitalized, although they had talked over the phone whenever Michelle wanted to know how Karis was doing. Roan meekly waved back.

At the sound of her friend's voice, Karis looked up with wide eyes. "Michelle?"

Meekly, Michelle leaned to the left of Roan. "H-hi, Karis."

The red-haired girl stood up and walked up to her. Roan moved to the side. Karis looked up at her with an intense frown on her face. For a moment, Michelle thought she was still angry, until the small red-head said pluckily, "You look different. You get a haircut or something?"

It wasn't a particularly funny joke, but it was enough; Michelle let out a relieved laugh. "Yeah, I had it dyed. What do you think?"

"I think that I'm going to be the only one around here with a hair color other than black." She looked at Roan, with her platinum-blonde pixie cut. "Apart from you, mate."

Roan smiled slightly. She turned to Michelle and Wehrung, who stood a full six feet away down the hall. "I'd be happy to catch up with you both, but I can't right now. I need to go and make my speech for Student Council President at the auditorium."

"Oh! You're running for SCP? Congratulations!" Michelle said. "Who are you running against?"

"Damien Pullwitz."

Wehrung snorted. "Damien? Well, good for him, but nobody is going to vote for a pasty little dude with glasses the size of Jupiter. I mean, don't get me wrong; he's a smart guy, but I don't have that much faith in everyone to vote for him."

"You haven't heard him make a speech," Roan said. "He's an excellent orator, and a pretty good demagogue."

"You got an angle, then?" Michelle asked.

Roan checked her watch again and grimaced. "Well, I can tell you if you follow me." She headed down the hall toward the stairs, with Michelle, Karis, and Wehrung all in close pursuit. Roan continued, "I'm going to talk about how I'll reduce some of Falwell's new security measures."

"You can do that?" Wehrung asked, incredulous, as though he had just found out she could turn water into wine.

"I'm sure as hell going to try," Roan said with determination. "I know that some people are fine with all the changes that Falwell has brought, but I'm not. I think it's a violation of our rights to privacy. I mean, come on. Metal detector searches. What am I going to do, bring in a bomb? I can't see that happening at Fielding."

"Heh, _I_ can," Wehrung said dryly, recalling the time he had sent an exploding cake to the Tops.

"Well, I'm sorry if you think that way, Alex," Roan said. "But Fielding is not _that_ unsafe. Besides, the police force we had while Michaelas was still here did their job well enough; we don't need all the additional security. From what I hear, even Lawndale High hasn't gone this far, and that's just sad. For us, not for them. Anyway, this crap needs to be fixed, and _I_ want to fix it."

A little while later, they had reached the auditorium, which was filling up rapidly. Damien was already on stage. With his large glasses, tweed jacket, unkempt hair, and bow tie, he looked like a stereotype of the typical geek. Wehrung snickered. "Roan, you've already won."

Michelle turned to him and flicked him between the eyes. "Ow!" he exclaimed.

"Don't be an ass. Good luck, Roan!" she said with a smile.

"Yeah, knock 'em dead!" Karis enthused. She held up her hand for a high-five, and Roan obliged her.

"Thanks, guys! I'll give it my all."

XXXX

Damien had made his speech clearly and concisely, without ever taking a shot at Roan. He talked mostly about raising the school's funding for tutoring programs, recreational programs, and sports. Roan felt that these were reasonable, but probably unattainable goals. _Crap, what does that say about my goals then? Are they unattainable too? God, I hope not. I'm going to try regardless._

When it came to be her turn to speak, Roan took a few calming breaths, cleared her throat, and spoke with as confident, but friendly, a tone as possible. "Hey guys. We all know some of these changes have been…" Roan looked to the left and eyed one of the campus police officers. She knew all of them reported directly back to Falwell. _How ridiculous is it that I have to be afraid of speaking my mind? Still, I have to be careful if I want to make change. _Licking her lips, she chose her words carefully. "They've been a little unsavory, but we can still work with what we have to make the Fielding experience as great as it always has been." _And now I've devolved to bullshitting. Great._ "And we can continue to build on to that experience. For instance-"

"Excuse me!" a voice called from the crowd. "I apologize for interrupting, Ms. Breckenridge, but-"

"Apology not accepted," Roan cut in, very much annoyed. "You can ask me questions after this is over, whoever you are." She winced when she realized she'd left this person an opening to continue talking.

Sure enough, he did. "Ethan Dressler," the voice responded.

Karis, Wehrung, and Michelle all shot up out of their seats at the same time.

Roan was also surprised, and evidently, so was over half of the auditorium. Hundreds of students began to whisper amongst themselves. Ethan had gained a reputation for being an imposing, spoiled, and near-genius student. And the news of his apparent demise by car in California had become well-circulated news via The Boarder. If he was back, it was going to be bad news for at least _somebody. _

A thought flashed through Roan's mind. _Is he the one who's_….her attention turned back to the auditorium. "All right, that's enough," she said sternly. The auditorium continued to buzz excitedly.

"My fellow students!" cried Damien into the microphone. "Please turn your eyes and ears back to Ms. Breckenridge."

Roan nodded to him thankfully, and spoke back into the microphone. "It's good to hear that you've recovered, Ethan. But anyways, back to the security measures. And no more interruptions, please…."

XXXX

As soon as the speech was over, Karis exclaimed, "Where is he?"

"I don't see him!" Wehrung shouted loudly, in order to be heard over the din of the students rapidly filing out of the auditorium.

"Of course you can't! You're wearing an eye-patch!" Karis reminded him.

"Good point!" He flipped it up.

"Tall, unshaven, black suit, messy hair, yellow eyes! How hard can that be, you guys?!" exclaimed Michelle.

"We're all visually impaired! It's pretty bloody hard!" said Karis.

As they all frantically looked around the auditorium, Wehrung managed to spy an interesting sight. "Guys," he said, pointing at the right side of the stage. "Look at that."

They looked. Roan was at her podium, arms crossed over her chest, angrily arguing with a student over a head taller than her. He was bald and wearing the Fielding uniform. And his face was almost completely devoid of emotion, apart from an occasional smirk.

"Is that…"

They watched for another half a minute as he argued with Roan. Suddenly, Roan smiled before pointing at the three of them. The tall student looked where she was pointing, and Michelle gasped when she saw the bright red scar on his face. Ethan looked equally surprised. The four of them exchanged looks for a long moment, before Ethan bowed his head and walked off-stage.

It took the three a few moments to get over their shock. "Was that really...yeesh," Wehrung murmured. "He looked horrible."

"Should we go after him?" Karis said.

"I don't know," Wehrung said. "Didn't look like he particularly wanted to talk to us."

"I can't believe it," Michelle muttered. "This shouldn't be possible. He was in a coma. Elizabeth told Gage as much, said he was a vegetable. When did he come out of it? And why didn't he bother to at least give us a call?"

As they further discussed the re-appearance of the former leader, Roan jumped off the stage and headed over to them. Karis waved and said uncertainly, "Um, nice speech?"

"Thanks," Roan said dryly. "Would have been better if your friend hadn't interrupted."

"So that _was_ Ethan?" Wehrung asked.

"Yeah. It was."

"Holy flipping crap," whispered Michelle to herself. "How's that...you can't just come back from being a vegetable."

"What were you two talking about, Roan?" Karis asked.

She replied, "He asked me to join a group he's forming. The Vipers. _He's_ the one who has been putting portions of the Mafia back together. He didn't tell me what he planned to do with this group, though."

"So he goes to you first to join his new little club, but not us?" Wehrung asked, feeling more than a little offended. "First that, then he practically runs away when he sees us? The hell is his problem?"

"Well, he got hit by a car. I imagine he must be going through some kind of trauma," Michelle pointed out, "but I agree, it's weird that he hasn't talked to us yet. Did he happen to mention where he's living, Roan? Is he back at Warville?"

"No, he didn't say."

"Maybe we should just leave him alone," said Karis. When all eyes turned on her, she shrugged meekly. "Well, maybe he just needs space? If he does want to talk to us, let him."

"No."

Michelle had said it firmly and definitively. "If this were a year ago, I would have gladly let him be. But he was in a bad accident, he came out of it, never bothered to call us, and now he's forming another secret society? No."

As she stalked off towards the exit, she turned back and saw that Wehrung, Karis, and Roan were all giving her confused looks. "What are you all looking at me like that for? Come on!

"We're gonna get some damn answers."

-With thanks to Kristen Bealer for beta-reading, and to Roentgen for writing some dialogue!


	2. The Vampire's Confession

_Elizabeth Dressler walked loudly into her brother's hospital room. Ethan was propped up in his bed with pillows, breathing softly. Bandages swathed his bald head, and tubes fed into his nose and mouth, which hung slack, and a steady stream of drool dripped out onto his bedsheets. Beside him, a machine that monitored brain activity made no noise, but his heart monitor beeped steadily._

_She pulled up a chair next to him and sat down in it, and stared hard at her brother's face. "I know you're faking it," she said.  
Ethan remained limp._

_"Ah-ah, don't think you can fool me," she said in a tone a mother might give to a misbehaving toddler. "I know you re-programmed the machine last week; I noticed the clear spots left by your fingers among the dust. I thought I was imagining it for a bit. Then I realized that this is exactly something you would pull."_

_Ethan still made no indication that he could hear her._

_Scooting her chair closer to him, Elizabeth said, "You have ten seconds to quit it before I start tickling you."_

_Still nothing._

_Desperately hoping that she was right, Elizabeth said, "Suit yourself," and reached out her hand towards Ethan's neck, wiggling her fingers. Closer, closer…  
Ethan's hand darted up and roughly slapped hers away. She never felt so happy and relieved. His eyes opened. He turned his head to his sister and glared. "Damn you," he croaked, before descending into a fit of labored coughing._

_"Brother!" Elizabeth exclaimed happily._

_"ShhhhACK!" His hush was interrupted by her sudden hug. "Ow," he grunted._

_"Sorry." When she pulled away, her smile had faded. "Hold on. How long have you been pretending?"_

_He merely held up two fingers. When he spoke, his voice was barely a whisper. "I figured out my situation quick enough. Going from about to being hit by a car to lying in a dark room is a pretty jarring transition, I must say. The brain monitor over here started beeping like mad; luckily nobody heard, and I've always had excellent night vision. I reprogrammed it, which considering my current state was a feat of Olympic proportions, and went back to bed. I've been using this time to rest and contemplate."_

_"Contemplate what?"_

_"Nothing particularly interesting," he said. "My actions that have led to this point. The things I've done to myself and others. And I've also thought of an essay I'd like to write about the electrical activity in the brain as it makes decisions." Ethan had, however, come up with a plan that involved more than one revenge plot against certain individuals at Fielding. He kept that to himself._

_"Mm," went Elizabeth. "So," she said in an attempt to lighten the atmosphere with small-talk, "come to any epiphanies?"_

_Ethan nodded. "I want to go back to Fielding, find my friends and tell them….sorry, I guess."_

_Elizabeth's tone suddenly turned harsh. "And what about me?" she asked, an angry scowl on her face. "Don't I get an apology for having to worry about you for so long? Doesn't Edric? Mom and Dad? Dylan?"_

_He became tense at the mention of the last name. Ethan tried to rise from his bed, but fell back, sweating. "Do not…." his body racked with another stream of wet coughs. He gave up trying to be angry and sank back into his cushions. "Forget it," he croaked. "I just need more rest. And more time to think." He looked at his sister; two pairs of bright yellow eyes locked. He pointed a shaky finger at her. "Do not tell mom, dad, Edric, Dylan, or any of the ASPS," he ordered her. "If you do….I'll do something bad, not sure what yet. I just need to be alone."_

_"You always need to be alone. I guess your contemplations haven't made you any more social, eh?"_

_"You'd be right, Liz." He sighed and took a gentler tone. "Look, I promise I will tell everyone eventually. I just need to regain my strength first."_

_"And how will I know you're ready to spread your wings and fly, little sparrow?" She smirked as Ethan gave her the bird._

_"You'll know, I assure you. Don't worry about me, Liz. I'll be fine." He reached out his hand, which she took and squeezed lightly. She smiled, and so did he, but only briefly. He closed his eyes. "Now piss off and let me rest."_

_"Yes, grandpa," she said sarcastically. "Boy, are you lucky you don't snore."_

_"I know it," he whispered. He almost instantly fell back asleep. _

XXXX

Even though the speeches were over, a large crowd of students lingered outside the auditorium. At six-foot two, Michelle easily could have seen over them, but with vision that was, in a manner of speaking, rather crude in construct, it was difficult to determine where Ethan was. "Anyone else see him?" she asked.

Wehrung and Karis squinted, searching the crowd. "Hey!" Wehrung exclaimed in surprise.

"Do you see him?" Michelle asked.

"No. I just noticed that Roan bailed on us."

Indeed, she had. "Well, where'd she go?" Michelle said.

"No clue," said Wehrung.

"I see him!" Karis said excitedly. She pointed a small finger towards the back of the crowd. "And he's looking at us!"

The other two looked at where she was pointing, and saw that, indeed, Ethan was staring right back at them. His eyes momentarily bugged out of his head before he began to briskly jog away towards the Craig building.

"You gotta be kidding," Michelle groaned. "After him!"

The three ASPS immediately took off after him, although Karis quickly began to pant from the strain of running. She was never particularly athletic and it showed. Wehrung biked for exercise, which gave him considerably more endurance, but Ethan was so far ahead that he too began to feel weary. Michelle, however, was very and fit and was quickly gaining on Ethan, who was even more sedentary than Karis.

He led them up to the Craig building, running alongside it. Ethan suddenly raised his fist into the air and waved it around in a circular motion, before he turned the corner and ran behind the building. _Was that a signal?_ Michelle wondered.

As it turned out, it was. As soon as she turned the same corner, Michelle was faced with two beefy-looking senior boys who immediately blocked her way. "Move it!" she shouted at them.

"Nope!" one of them said with a self-important smirk on his face. "You stay put."

Michelle felt tempted to knee one of them in the groin, but knew that would just create unnecessary trouble. She leaned to the right of them, and before they leaned to block her view, she momentarily saw Ethan walk leisurely away, his back turned to her. Feeling frustrated, Michelle glared at the two and said, "What are you, his lackeys?"

"We are Vipers," one of them answered. "And we don't answer to ASPS. So beat it."

Michelle was taken aback momentarily, before recalling Roan's words: _He's the one putting the Mafia back together._ She thought, _Well, hopefully these goons remember my foot on Dmitri Vagin's chest._ Michelle took a step towards them, her best threatening expression on her face, fists curled. In a deadly tone, she ordered, "Get. Out. Of. My. Way."

For an instant, the two looked weary, but one of them laughed. "Nice try, Smith. Sorry, still ain't budging. Our boss gave us clear orders: you don't get to see him. So, once again, beat it. Before I make you."

Wehrung appeared, panting. "I...will...kill...ulp!" he noticed the two Vipers and paled. "Uh…..hi?"

"Last warning, ASPS. Go."

Michelle knew that she couldn't take on both of them, and that, for now, Ethan wasn't worth it anyhow. She turned to Wehrung. "Come on." She walked off back the way they had run, and he followed.

"Who...the...hell...were...they?" he asked.

"Ethan's new henchmen."

"He….he has freaking henchmen now?" Wehrung looked annoyed, then concerned. "Do you think he's gonna send them after us?"

She shrugged. "Don't know. I'd tend to doubt it. Let's just leave him alone; it looks like a reunion is going to be more trouble than it's worth."

As they walked back, they came across Karis, who was flat on her back in the grass, huffing. "I think," she panted, "I'll just lie here and die for now."

XXXX

_Ethan had kept his word. A month later, and seven months after his accident, Elizabeth was eating dinner with her parents when Xander Dressler suddenly received a call from his work phone. "Can this wait?" he said without waiting for whoever was on the other line to introduce themselves. "I'm having dinner with my family."_

_"And you didn't invite me?" said a flat voice on the other line._

_Xander dropped his fork and shot to his feet._

_"Honey, what is it?" asked a worried Alix Dressler._

_"Ethan?!" exclaimed Xander. His wife and daughter immediately sprang out of their seats as well with wide eyes._

_"Is he okay?!" cried Alix._

_"Tell mom I'm fine," Ethan said on the other line. He stood in a hospital hallway, wearing a loose gown. He had removed the bandages that had wrapped around his head, revealing a massive, ugly red scar that arched over his bare cranium. He continued, "I just woke up."_

_"Who is it?" pried Alix._

_"He says he's Ethan," Xander explained._

_His wife's face paled. "He was brain-dead," she said in a hushed, amazed tone._

_"I know," Xander said. To make sure that this was in fact his son, he said, "Name your grandparents. The Dresslers and the Armistads."_

_"Father, I'm hurt," said Ethan, even though he felt more impatient than offended. "Your own son has returned from death's door and-"_

_"Just answer the goddamn question!" Xander roared._

_"Ow." Ethan reflexively pulled the receiver away from his ear. "Well, you didn't actually ask me a question, but if you insist. Rorschach. Deryn. Josiah. Kristin."_

_"And name your girlfriend."_

_The skin under Ethan's eye twitched. "Dylan."_

_Xander felt both dumbfounded and elated. "It's him," he breathed excitedly to his family. Alix clapped her hands excitedly and let out a relieved and joyed sob, while Elizabeth smiled happily. "Someone call Edric," said Xander. Noticing his wife's intense relief, he turned to his daughter. "Liz?" She nodded and scurried off to call her oldest brother._

_"Son, is there anything you need?"_

_"Yes," Ethan said without hesitation. _

XXXX

A little while after the school day ended, Michelle and Karis made their way to meet Gage, whom had been told of Ethan's return an hour earlier. The sky was dark by the time they arrived, so they were only happy to have dinner with Michael, Gage, and Wehrung inside the bright and warm, yet slightly decaying building that was Harris Studios.

As the table was being laid and Michael Harris was finishing cooking his batch of chili, Gage, who had been looking blue ever since they arrived, spoke up in a somber tone. "So. How's being back at Fielding going for you so far, Michelle? Besides what happened earlier today."

She gave him a questioning look, and he stared mournfully back at her. "Um…..it was fine," she said as she removed her 'eye,' carefully placing it under her chair. She rubbed the right side of her face, where a large red mark had been left from wearing the 'eye' for so long. "Being a week late for classes is never a good thing, but I think I'll manage. Fielding seems a lot quieter. Guess we have Falwell to thank for that."

"It's been serene," Karis added with a smile. "No screaming, no bullying out in the open. I've heard rumours that Bitchmas won't even happen this year!"

"Bitch-what?" said Michael Harris, looking very much confused. Karis's face quickly flushed with embarrassment.

"Annual event when guys go and harass girls," Wehrung explained.

"Ah." Michael shot a frown Gage's way. "You've never told me about that, my boy." Gage shrugged, gazing down at the floor. His adoptive grandfather took notice and asked, "You all right?"

"Yeah," said Wehrung. "You've been looking depressed all day."

Gage waved them off, still staring at the ground. "I'm okay. Just thinking."

"About what?" asked Karis.

"Stuff."

"What kinda stuff?" Wehrung perseverated.

"Alex," said Michelle. The eye-patch-wearing teen shriveled at the sound of his first name. The look she gave him clearly said, _That's your cue to leave him alone._

He gave her a confused glance, before shrugging. "Okay. Never mind then." But he had been noticing lately that Gage had become increasingly more distant and anxious. He never mentioned any trouble at school, had been taking his medication, and seemed perfectly content helping his adoptive grandfather run the business. _So why's he so glum?_ Wehrung had a theory, but he decided it was best to ask Gage about it later.

XXXX

_Only thirty minutes after Ethan's call, the Dressler family was in his hospital room, while its longest occupant hungrily eyed his suit, sitting on a rack in corner of the room. "I forgot to say," Ethan said from the chair where he sat. "I got a call from Edric. He said he's going to be flying out tonight."_

_"That's great!" Alix smiled. "Everyone will be together again."_

_Ethan looked at his father. "So, father. When do you think I can get out of here?"_

_"Sorry son, not for a while," Xander said. Ethan's face immediately fell. "I need to run some tests on you, make sure you're all right. For a while there, you were most certainly a vegetable. I need to make sure you're cognitively healthy, check for possible after-effects of your coma. I don't want to let you back into the world, not knowing what could happen to you. You understand?"_

_Ethan was tempted to tell his father he'd been conscious for over a month now, and that he had felt perfectly fine. But he did not want to earn the wrath of his parents, and decided to keep silent. "When can I get back to school?"_

_"We can hire you a private tutor until then, Ethan," said his mother. "Keep you sharp, so when you get back to high school you can continue dominating."_

_Ethan bit his lip. "Yes, well, here's the thing. I want to go back to Fielding."_

_His parents exchanged concerned looks. "Are you sure?" Alix asked. "You probably won't get your room in Warville back. And-"_

_"Mother, let me just say this. I hate Saratoga High School. I mean, sure, it's probably superior to most other public schools, but compared to Fielding….I feel like I'm in classes with toddlers. I am not getting challenged at all. And…" he tried not to show emotion, but he looked slightly pleading when he said to his mother, "I miss my friends."_

_Alix Dressler felt herself tearing up; she had never before heard her son say he had friends. Sniffling, and without saying anything, she went over to her son and hugged him._

_"Um…" He patted her back. "There there?" He looked up at his father. "You all right with that?"_

_"I have no problem with it, for the most part. We sent you there before, we can do it again. I just want to make absolutely sure you're healthy."_

_Before Ethan could protest, he froze when his mother unattached herself from him and smiled. The two exchanged a long look, and something in her expression made Ethan resign himself to his fate. He gave a conciliatory sigh and said, "All right, Dr. Dressler. But one thing. Do I have to keep my head shaved?"_

_"Afraid so," said Xander. "Gotta keep that scar under check. Why, you not liking how it looks?"_

_"No," Ethan said. He rubbed it sheepishly. "It's cold up here."_

XXXX

After they had finished their dinner, Wehrung and Gage retreated into their room to do their homework. Gage had completed his within twenty minutes, while it took Wehrung a further two hours, due to the considerable difficulty of Fielding-given homework, and the fact that he often wandered over to the computer the two shared to look at things on the internet.

When he eventually completed his work, Wehrung changed into pajamas, brushed his teeth, turned out the lights, and climbed into bed. After around ten minutes of tossing and turning, he whispered, "Gage? You 'wake?"

"Mm."

"So, you okay?"

"Yeah," Gage grumbled brusquely.

"C'mon man, what's wrong? You can tell me."

Gage considered. "Fine. It's not like you can provide me a solution here. Daria and Jane are fighting again."

"Over you?"

"Well-"

"I thought they'd gotten that all squared away," said Wehrung.

"Well, they haven't. Daria is still mad at me, and now Jane is mad at _her_ for being mad at _me_! She wants Daria to be mad at _her_ instead. And she's mad at me for not taking a side!" Gage said in exasperation.

Wehrung frowned. "Jane or Daria?"

"Jane!"

"Yeesh, there's no need to yell."

Gage let out a humorless laugh. "Oh, you have no idea, dude. Daria wants to leave Lawndale High now!"

"Huh?"

"Yeah! She says now that she and Jane barely spend any time together anymore, she has no reason for staying at Lawndale High, and that she's going to transfer. Jane told me."

"Then where is she going? Fielding?"

"Maybe, I don't know. God, this makes me wish that I _was_ gay like everyone says."

"Or bi. I bet it's pretty nice to have twice the options. Michelle always seemed to roll with it. But anyway, so Daria wants to leave public high school, okay, pretty strange. But it doesn't sound like Jane doesn't have any reason to break up with you, though."

"She's kicking herself over this," said Gage. "She wants to stay with me, but she doesn't want Daria to go. She's mad at Daria because she feels like Daria's forcing her to make a decision she doesn't want to make, and like I said, she's angry with me because I haven't told her to stay with me, Daria be darned."  
Wehrung snickered. "Darned?"

"Whatever. Jeez, Wehrung. This whole thing is killing me. I mean, I don't want to affect Jane's decision, because lord knows that's a really bad idea, but I don't want to lose my girlfriend. What do you think I should do?"

He shrugged. "Suggest a ménage à trois?"

"Hardee har har. Not helping."

"You've come to the wrong guy, man. One aborted date is the extent of my experience."

"Oh yeah, Joan. Whatever happened there?"

"Nuh uh, _you're_ the one with the girl trouble here, not me. If I were you, I'd go to someone else with more experience. Or stick Daria and Jane in a room together and have them fight to the death over you."

"They're not fighting _over_ me, dude. They just have an issue to work out."

"An issue over you."

Rolling his eyes in annoyance, Gage muttered, "If that makes you happy, sure. It's all about me."

"It doesn't make me happy. It just makes it funnier."

Gage turned over. "Whatever, dude. Screw you. Good night."

"Gage-"

"Good night." He started snoring.

"You're so faking that!" Wehrung said with exasperation. When Gage didn't reply, he gave up and resigned himself to sleep as well.

XXXX

_Looking at his scar in Elizabeth's makeup-mirror, Ethan reached at his forehead and rubbed at it. "Ow," he winced. The check-shaped mark seemed to pulsate angrily at his touch._

_"Look on the bright side, baby bro!" chirped Edric Dressler, who stood only at five-foot-eight, making his pet name for Ethan all the more ironic. "Chicks love scars. Speaking of that, have you given Dylan a call yet?"_

_Ethan exhaled loudly through his nose. "No."_

_"No? Why not?"_

_"Because I broke up with her right before I got hit."_

_"You did? Oh, how the heavens must have cracked!"_

_"Shut up."_

_"Never! So, how come?"_

_Ethan licked his lips. "...I'm not sure. I thought I did it because I thought she deserved someone better than me, maybe."_

_"Or did you just want to be preemptive?" suggested Edric._

_Ethan gave his brother a hard frown. "Pardon?"_

_"Well, you told me how pissed she was at you after that whole thing in ABQ, which, by the way, I haven't told anyone, in case you were worried."_

_"With your secret-keeping record? I regretted confiding in you almost immediately."_

_"Yeah, well, anyway, I was practically waiting for her to call you and give you the notice. I mean, yeah, the whole thing where you conned dad into paying for her treatment was cute and all, but c'mon! You dragged her back from her vacation, got all the way up in beeswax you had no point sticking your little nose into, and didn't apologize to top it all off! Frankly, I'm shocked you ended it first. Well, not really. You always were a bona-fide prick, little brother. It's what you do so well."_

_Snarling, Ethan hissed, "Why, thank you, Edric. That makes me feel much better."_

_"Hey, I don't mean no disrespect, little brother. I admire you for your consistency."_

_"You 'don't mean no'?" Ethan sniveled, repulsed at Edric's grammar. "My theory of you being adopted grows stronger every day, brother. Are you sure you're not wearing yellow-tinted contact lenses?"_

_Edric ignored that, and made an attempt to reach out to Ethan: "It's not too late for you to make amends, ya know. Elizabeth did tell her about what happened to you, and from what I hear, Dylan got pretty upset. You could come up with something about having seen the light, and try get back into her good graces."_

_He thought about it. _I do miss her. I miss talking to her. _Dylan had been the first person he ever felt that he could truly confide in; she was interested in, and cared about, what he had thought, and he had done the same for her._ But the way she looked at me on that day in Albuquerque….Ethan sighed sadly. _I deserved that. I did something stupid. She deserves better. _

_It almost killed him to say it, yet he told his brother, "Dylan and I are through, and that's that, end of story. It's not like you know what it's like, brother."_

_Edric frowned. "Whatcha mean?"_

_Ethan let out a hollow laugh. "Oh, come on. You may not make it explicit, but if you were any gayer your urine would produce rainbows."_

_His brother's expression changed from shock, to fear, to hurt. Then Edric's face broke out into a grin and he threw back his head and laughed. "Hahahaha! Hoo boy, yeah, you're right. But guess what, little brother? I know stuff too."_

_"Like what?"_

_"Like the fact that you were actually awake much longer than you said."_

_"What?" Ethan bolted upright. Fury awoke within him. "Did Elizabeth tell you?"_

_More laughter. "Nope!" Edric pointed at him. "You just did."_

Damn it. _He sank back into his blankets. "Well, good job for tricking me brother. I suppose you're going to tell mom and dad, now?"_

_"Gimme some credit, baby brother! I'll only tell if and only if...you ready for this?" His jovial tone instantly became serious; pleading, even. "When you go back to Fielding, apologize to your buddies. Do some volunteer work. Apply for scholarships. Do not go back to that stupid club of yours."_

_Ethan rolled his eyes. "Suppose I choose to ignore your advice, brother? What will mom and dad do? Pull me out of school for taking an extended nap?"_

_Sighing heavily, Edric, feeling frustrated at his brother's stubbornness, picked up his coat from a nearby rack and made his way towards the door. "Just don't get into any trouble, Ethan. Please. It'll kill mom and dad. They do care, you know."_

_"Whatever. Just leave me alone, Edric." His brother didn't budge. "Please," Ethan said as though it caused him pain to say the word._

_"Fine." As his older brother took his leave, he turned to Ethan one more time and said, "Don't screw this up, baby brother."_

_Ethan waved dismissively at him, and breathed a sigh of relief when Edric was finally gone._

XXXX

"I was warned about you," Roan said to Ethan as the crowd of students buzzed behind them.

_Julian,_ he'd thought, hurt at this betrayal. _Why, Julian? Just when I thought I could trust you…_

"I am not coming back to the Mafia, and that's final."

Ethan tried to give her a warm smile, but it came out looking rather ominous. "That's not our name anymore, but regardless. Are you're sure there's nothing I can do to convince you?"

Returning with a smile of her own, as if she had just heard some kind of clever joke, Roan said, "No. You can try convincing _them_, though." She pointed a finger at the rapidly-diminishing audience.

Them? Ethan looked where she was pointing and saw them. They looked different, but there was no mistaking them. Wehrung, Michelle, and Karis were all staring back at him, surprised expressions on her faces. Ethan felt panic well up in his chest. _No. Not yet. I can't. Not yet._ Trying his best to maintain his composure, Ethan turned on his heel and walked off-stage. He swore he could feel Roan's smug grin following him.

The moment Ethan was outside, he found the two Vipers he'd assigned to come to the speeches. "Dean, Ben. Go to the back side of the Chegg building. I have a feeling I am about to be followed."

"Yessir, bossman." The two jogged off.

Ethan made pushed and slithered his way through the crowd, noticing the way the other students were staring at his scarred faces. At one point, he would have sneered, maybe even hissed at them to get them to avert their beady little eyes, but he no longer cared. Quickly glancing back, he saw the ASPS looking right at him. Immediately, Ethan headed toward Chegg, jogging steadily. He was panting in moments. _What I wouldn't give to at least have the slightest bit of motivation to at least touch a treadmill._

A minute later, he was behind the Chegg building, and slowed down to a brisk walk as he passed Ben and Dean. As he walked away, he looked behind him one more time, and saw Michelle Smith leaning past Ben to look at him. Immediately, he looked away and headed back to his dorm. He would meet them again on his own time, when he felt ready. Whenever that was.

Xander and Alix Dressler had agreed to pay for Ethan to live in a single in Georgia-Black; he was no longer eligible to live in Warville, as his old room had been taken by another student researching the recently-discovered the venomous Argentinian tree-frog. He was not fond with the level of noise that came with living in a dormitory with more than nine boys, but he reluctantly learned to get used to it.

There was a benefit living there though, at least he thought. Ethan believed that nobody would ever imagine an ordinary student was coming up with schemes that could change the entire way Fielding was run right in his own room. Hiding in plain sight is how he chose to think about his living situation.

As he continued to plot in his head, Ethan's thoughts turned back to the ASPS, and he wondered if he ought to try asking them to join the Vipers. _But I can't even work up the guts to talk to them, how can I expect to ask that of them? Besides, they probably don't operate anymore. As much as I'd love to work with them again, I will keep them out of it. _

He eyed his phone, and realized he had to make a call. _Oh Julian...whatever shall I do with you?_

XXXX

A month went by, and gradually, the reputation of the Vipers as some kind of shadowy anti-bullying organization grew, but what sent them apart from the Mafia was that they were more public, no longer acting in the shadows and helping any students they could see. However, most of the time they operated within the dorms, as that's where most bullying had been taking place. The massive police presence on the Fielding campus served as Carter Falwell's ever-watchful eye, and ear as well.

Word of a vigilante organization eventually spread to the administration, and it was rumoured that Falwell and the governors were discussing whether or not to start asking police officers to patrol the dormitories to catch both bullies and the Vipers.

When rumours such as these reached the ears of the students, none were as furious as Roan Breckenridge. She approached Michelle, Wehrung, and Karis as they were sitting outside during lunch one day and sat down across from them at their table with a dark frown on her face. "Your friend is making it very difficult for any positive changes to be made. Haven't you tried to talk to him?"

Wehrung shrugged indifferently. "My nose is clean; I have nothing to worry about. Let the fuzz go around the dorms."

"And you don't care about the rights of your classmates?" Roan asked.

He put a finger to his lips. "Hurm, let me think….ah, no."

"Fine," she said. "But what Ethan's doing is not right. If we want change, we do it without intimidating people, without all this vigilante crap."

Michelle cocked her head. "What Ethan's doing sounds a lot like what the Mafia used to do, Roan. They're just not as secretive about it."

"They've finally come out of the closet!" Wehrung snickered. A murderous gaze from Roan made him shrink where he sat like a whipped puppy.

"What the Mafia did was not really at all okay," Karis said. She turned to Wehrung and Michelle. "And same for the ASPS."

"You _did_ do a prank with us once," Wehrung reminded her. "You didn't seem to have all that many qualms back then. Besides, c'mon, the Tops always had it coming." Michelle shrugged as if to indicate she agreed, to a degree. Roan said nothing.

"Maybe. But we're not doing that anymore. We've grown out of it, right?" Karis said, looking at all of them. Michelle and Roan both nodded. Wehrung joined in their assent when Michelle made a loud "ahem!" sound. Wehrung gaped at her.

"You're not even wearing your eye right now!" he exclaimed. "How'd you do that?"

"I know you," she said with a smirk. Her expression turned serious when she said, "So, Roan, what do you want us to do?"

"You're his friends. Ask him to stop."

"You're being awfully demanding here," Wehrung grumbled.

Roan exhaled sharply. "Fine. Could you do me a favor and ask him to stop whatever he's doing, please? Because seriously, if it's one thing I learned, it's that one person shouldn't be responsible for inducing change, especially like this. And I really, _really_ don't like the idea of cops patrolling down my hallway."

Karis gave her an odd look, and was about to say something to her when Wehrung piped up. "Well, we don't know where he lives. We can't just go to the main office and ask. I suppose I could hack into the school's computer mainframe and look up the info, but, heh, you're gonna love this, they actually instituted new cyber-security measures at the same time they got all the new cops. They really thought of everything. So, we only have one option: we have to break in and steal the files."

Karis blinked at him. "Or we could just ask people where the tall bald guy with the gigantic scar on his head lives."

"...that works too," Wehrung said, his face turning bright red.

"When we find out, we'll tell you, Roan," Michelle said. "And we can all talk to him. Sound good?"

She nodded, smiling thankfully. "Thanks. Sorry to put you through the trouble."

"It's no trouble," Michelle said, before bringing her watch up to within an inch to her eye. "Ah, my next class starts in a bit, I'm going to go over. Anyone want to come with?"

"I'll come," said Karis nervously. She wanted to get away from Roan for a while; the hypocrisy of something she had said earlier bothered her, and for now, she didn't know how to address it to her.

"Well, I'll guess I'll be seeing you guys all later then," Wehrung said, quickly picking up his backpack and walking off.

"See you later, Chap," Roan said affectionately to Karis before walking off as well.

It was a little while later when the two started to walk up the North Road that Karis realized something wasn't quite right. "I thought your….isn't your next class at Ransom Howard?"

"Yeah. In an hour."

"Oh. Um, all right. So where are we going?"

"Georgia-Black." Michelle put her 'eye' back on with a certain determination. "I'm going to talk to Ethan."

Karis started in surprise. "Wait, you know where he lives?"

"Uh huh. I called his sister the day after we saw that he was back, she told me."

"Oh. Huh," said Karis.

"Yup," said Michelle.

"Wait, why didn't you tell Roan?"

The corner of Michelle's mouth twitched. "Yeah, maybe I should have, I don't know. I mean, I do trust her now; she took pretty good care of you while I was in Maine. But I've known Ethan longer, and I wanted to talk to him first, one-on-one."

"Oh. So I can't come?"

"Do you _want_ to?"

Karis shivered. "Actually, no, he always did creep me out a bit."

"Okay then." Michelle cracked her knuckles and exhaled heavily. "Wish me luck."

XXXX

There was a knock at Ethan's door. "Who is it?"

"Federal Express," said a husky voice. "I have a package for Ethan Dressler from a Xander Dressler."

_Dad sent me something?_ His father _never_ sent him anything. Cautiously, Ethan stood up and slowly opened his door and peered through the crack. "Who is it real-"

A red-tipped cane shot through the crack and jabbed him in the stomach. Ethan cried out in shock and stumbled backwards into his chair and Michelle Smith pushed the door open and stepped inside, closing the door behind her. In one hand, she held her cane; in the other, she held the hulking battery for her 'eye.' It had been the first time they had seen each other in almost a year. Ethan sneered at her dyed-black hair.

Michelle spoke first. "Sorry about that. But first things first; I have questions. Why didn't you call? Why didn't you tell us you were okay? We all thought you were as good as dead!"

"Because," Ethan groaned, rubbing his stomach, "I didn't think you'd care, after what happened in Albuquerque. I didn't want to find out."

"And is that why you left without saying goodbye, either?"

"Right on the money, Michelle."

"And of course we car...wait." Her eyebrows shot up in surprise. "You just used my first name!"

"Oh good, your hearing is still working," he muttered. "OW!" Michelle had brought her cane down on his head, but not hard.

"Don't be a smartass," she said. "Why so friendly?"

He gave her a dirty look, as he now rubbed both his sore head and stomach. "I'm just trying to be nice. Don't kill me."

Michelle was glad that he finally seemed to be getting at least a little kinder, and would have tried to catch up with him, learn what had happened to him after his accident, but she had more questions about something else. "The Vipers," she said.

Flinching, knowing the jig was up, Ethan asked, "What about them?"

"What are you going to do with them?" She smirked humorlessly. "Start your own gay-rights movement?"

"No, I'm going to use them for my own nefarious purposes, of course" Ethan said sardonically. "And I'm afraid I can't tell you what that entails."

"C'mon, Ethan. Please."

"It's none of your business," he retorted sharply.

Michelle stared at him for a few moments, her face an indecipherable mask. Then she took her cane and pressed the tip gently onto one of his bare toes. Her tone had suddenly turned equally icy. "And. Why. Not?"

He looked from his toe to her and shrugged. "Because it's a secret, obviously. And that's all you need to GAAH!" She began to press the cane into the toenail of his big toe. Ethan's eyes flashed angrily and he snarled at her.

"I'm not a fan of nefariousness anymore, Ethan. I've grown out of it. I was hoping you had too. Tell me, now. What are you going to do with the Vipers?" She knew that if he just wanted to start another pranking organization, he would eventually tried to re-start the ASPS.

Breathing rapidly, hands clenched, trying to ignore the pain, Ethan said, "For starters, I'm going to have them throw you out. _Succurrite_!"

Michelle didn't need to know Latin to understand that that was a distress call. She removed the cane from his toe, flipper it upright into her hand and swung it around, but it was caught by one of the same boys that had blocked her earlier.

"Woah! You're right, boss! She has a mean swing!" Dean took Michelle's cane and blocked her hook, before Ben snuck up behind her and put her in an armlock. As Michelle struggled to break free, Dean asked, "You want us to put her in the bin?"

"No!" Ethan hissed sharply. "Turn her to face me." They did so. The two former ASPS gave each other stony glares that ended when Ethan sighed sadly. "Now do you see why I didn't want to reunite with the rest of you?"

"Don't you dare peg this on me, Dressler."

"I'm not, I'm not. Maybe some other time, Michelle, we can catch up as friends. But as the leader of the Vipers, I'm telling you to stay out of my way. Karis, Wehrung, Gage, and you have nothing to do with what I have planned. Just stay out of it." He nodded to his bodyguards. "Please escort her back to Blair. And for God's sake Ben, let go of her arms."

As Michelle was released from the arm-lock, she gave the bodyguards (both of whom were shorter yet much stronger than her) the finger before picking up her cane and leaving.

_Well, that escalated quickly, _she thought as she made her way back to Blair. _And maybe I overreacted. But I want to know what he's up to. It can't be anything good. _

When Michelle had returned to her dorm, an idea struck her. She took her phone and dialled a number. There were four rings. _C'mon, pick up!_

"Yello!" The voice on the other end answered. "Harris Studios, the premier Lawndale-"

"Wehrung, it's me."

"Oh, hey Michelle!" he said. "What's a-happenin'?"

"Listen. I just talked to Ethan."

"Wait, what? How the heck did you find out where he was?"

"I'll tell you later." She explained the nature of their encounter.

When she was done, he asked, "So, what do you want me to do?"

"Well...do you remember the Fourth Failsafe?"

There was a long pause over the other line. "Yeah."

"Do you still have that file?"

"I do," he confirmed.

Michelle breathed a sigh of relief.

"What do you want me to do with it?"

"For now, nothing. But if Ethan does something dumb, which, who am I kidding, is inevitable, I just want some….insurance, so to speak.

"We won't let another snake bite us."

XXXX

_He had been staring out the window for half the plane ride, and staring at the keypad built into the back of the seat in front of him the other half, with both trepidation and anxiety. 505-478-4803. Ten simple digits. _Don't be such a coward, just call for the love of god, _Ethan thought to himself. But every time he reached out to dial, some invisible force caused him to quickly withdraw his hand, and he would immediately turn his thoughts to something else in desperation._

_As the plane began to land, and he failed to sum up the courage to call for the sixth time, Ethan gripped his hand tightly, angrily cursing himself. He attempted to distract himself over his regrets by thinking about his ultimate objective: Carter Falwell, the replacement for Henry Michaelas. _

Your tenure is over, old man.


	3. ASPS vs Vipers

_The phone rang. "Hello? Oh, hey, how are you? What? He did? When?! Oh my god! That's great! Oh god….yeah, I'm here, I'm okay. Wow. Do you think...think I could talk to him? Oh. Okay. I understand. No, I'm all right. This is great news, I'm so relieved. Thank you for calling me. Look, I'd talk more, but I need to get off the phone now. Okay? Thanks again so much for calling. Bye." She hung up and turned her gaze on the plastic ring sitting on her nightstand._

XXXX

"Mr. Falwell, Mr. Blofeld is here to see you."

Headmaster Carter Falwell pressed a key on his speakerphone. "Send him in, darlin'." Falwell stood up and straightened his tie, taking a deep breath as he did so. He'd been anticipating this meeting for a few weeks, but that didn't make him any less nervous about it. After Josiah Armistad, Darren Wolowitz, and Deanna Schumer pulled their funding from Fielding following Henry Michaelas's departure, Fielding's funds had slowly but surely tapered off. James Blofeld was a Fielding alumnus and moderate Republican Congressman for the state of Maryland, who had insisted _adamantly_ on meeting with Falwell on the issue of vouchers. Blofeld had been making the case for years that Fielding ought to utilize them, and give students a free ride into Fielding if and only if they met and maintained Fielding's admissions requirements. Falwell was opposed to the idea entirely, but Blofeld had said on the local news he would personally help to fund Fielding if vouchers were implemented. Falwell couldn't deny the Congressman any longer. Especially not with the eyes of the governors constantly burning holes in him.

James Blofeld shuffled into the office. At sixty-five years old, he was short, balding, and already required a cane, but his frail appearance was offset by his surprisingly deep, commanding voice. "Hello, Mr. Falwell. Mind if I take a seat? My gout's kicking in."

"Of course." Falwell pulled up the seat opposite of his desk for Blofeld to sit in before sinking into his own leather armchair. "How's Washington, Congressman? You taking it to them tooth and nail?"

Blofeld chuckled at that. "I'm sure as hell trying. And you can call me Jim. So may I call you Carter?"

Falwell nodded with a forced smile. "I don't see why not, Jim."

Blofeld smiled back fleetingly. "Good. Now, you know why I'm here."

"I do," Falwell confirmed. "And as much as I would like more funds for the school, I'm afraid I don't hold the idea of vouchers in the best of lights. You might've heard, Jim, but I'm a bit of an individualist. I feel that if students want to get in, they have to earn it."

Blofeld frowned. "That doesn't make any sense."

"Pardon?"

"They _are_ earning it if they get in. The only difference is that their parents are paying for tuition without the vouchers. There's no difference when it comes to earning admission to Fielding."

Falwell licked his lips nervously. "Still, we'd be losing money if we allowed vouchers."

"I'd be willing to give Fielding funds," Blofeld said. "I don't exactly have much else to spend on. I'd be only happy to help out."

"That's very generous of you, Mr. Blofeld, but I can't-"

"Carter, no offense, but you need my help. You try to hide it, but Fielding's been hit hard after you took over Henry's job. The Wolowitz family's been generous donors for more than a century. Armistad is unhappy with how his grandson was slandered by the Boarder, rightfully so, and I'm going out on a limb and guessing that the Dresslers have pulled funding too. And without the income from Schumer Steel...well, I'm going to guess that all this has put the school back around...three million?"

The vein that bulged in Falwell's temple told Blofeld all he needed to know. The aging politician continued, "I may not be able to recoup all these losses, Carter, but I can at the very least alleviate them. As you know, my re-election campaign comes up in a few months, and I want people to see that I'm still supporting education. Heh, and what's more visible than Fielding, right? Besides, it doesn't mean you have to admit any of those lower-class jackboots that try to con their way into the school, Carter. Just those who can fulfill the admissions requirements and potentially have the status to improve Fielding. You know, good familial connections and the like. Implement vouchers, and I'll give you a hundred thousand up front. Another two hundred thousand if I win re-election."

Falwell was silent and stone-faced for a long time. Just as Blofeld was about to attempt to further convince Falwell, the Headmaster said, "A hundred fifty up front. And two fifty if you win re-election."

"Jeez." Blofeld exhaled loudly out his nose. "...a hundred up front, and the two fifty post."

"Two hundred pre, a hundred post," Falwell countered.

"...a hundred fifty pre, a hundred fifty post. And another fifty thousand if the voucher policy sticks over the next year. Final offer, Carter."

Falwell huffed. "You ought to work in a pawn shop after your next term, Congressman." He extended his hand, which Blofeld almost eagerly shook. "I'll get on the horn to the governors. Vouchers will be the next big thing at Fielding."

Blofeld let out a triumphant belly-laugh. "Rah rah ree."

XXXX

"The fourth failsafe?" Karis said as Michelle paced nervously back and forth across her room, her artificial eye buzzing loudly. "What's that?" She'd come to ask about it after Wehrung had inadvertently brought it up at lunch.

Michelle stopped pacing and looked at her. "Well, you remember how Ethan threatened you if you ever divulged the existence of the group to anyone?"

"Yeah. Why?"

"Well…." Michelle braced herself for an unpleasant reaction. "After each ASP joins, research is done about them. A failsafe. Their pasts, their medical records, their families, you get the idea."

Karis swallowed. "Blackmail?" she deduced.

Michelle nodded somberly. "In case any member of the ASPS goes rogue, yeah, with the intention to either keep them silent or ruin their life if they divulged our secrets. It's a practice that goes back to the original three: Annette, Brian and John. And when Brian tried to defect...well, the whole idea turned out to be in good conscience.

"When Wehrung joined, finding everyone's secrets became a lot easier on the group; he'd just hack the school's computer database and find most dirt there pretty fast."

"And what do you have on me?" Karis asked nervously.

Michelle shrugged. "Very little. Just that you got expelled from your last school. Honestly, you seemed too timid to rat us out."

_Well…yeah, because Ethan scared the crap out of me. But...do I still really come across as that much of a weakling? _

"Ethan," Michelle continued, "has enough dirt on him to put him in juvenile hall. The fourth failsafe is a record of the things he did as an ASP, some of which constitute assault, and...something else he doesn't know about."

"What?" asked Karis.

"Well...Ethan isn't the only Dressler who's done shady stuff, let's put it that way."

"Ah. And you'll think this'll put the bloke in his place?" Karis asked.

"I don't know. Ethan doesn't scare easily. Besides, I don't think he's going to do anything outside of keeping his version of order at Fielding with the Vipers. I hope. But we always have the failsafe if he does otherwise. So don't worry too much, Karis."

"But what about _our_ failsafes? Doesn't he know them?" Karis asked, trembling slightly.

Michelle grimaced. "Yeah," she said with hesitation. "He does."

Wringing her hands nervously, Karis said, "We're so screwed." She flinched when Michelle put her hands reassuringly on her small shoulders.

"Everything'll be all right, okay?" Michelle said with a tone that came across as vaguely patronizing. "I promise, nothing will happen to you. Okay? Don't worry about it. Wehrung and I will have it covered."

…_just you and Wehrung?_ It was both the reassurance and her lack of inclusion that suddenly made Karis realize that she was the baby of the group. In hindsight, she had never contributed to the ASPS in any meaningful way. Wehrung, Michelle, Gage, they'd never believed in her. She couldn't remember being asked to help them in any of their pranks, or to help them fight back against the Mafia. They'd been pretty much babysitting her; why did she have to be treated this way, like a small child?

"Okay," Karis said flatly. That seemed to satisfy Michelle, who separated herself from her. The tall girl said more words, but Karis couldn't hear them, for she was too engrossed in her own thoughts to pay attention. _I'm useless. I'm defenseless. Roan said herself that Michelle asked her to protect me. Would she even be my friend otherwise? Would everyone else, or do they just stick around me because they think I'd be mincemeat without them?_

Karis thought about how she could prove herself to them. Drawing on her conversation with Michelle, an idea sprang into her brain. _Ethan. The Vipers. I'll find out what they're up to._

"Karis?"

The small Brit looked up. "Mm?"

"You all right? You look kinda vacant."

"Yeah, uh, I'm fine. Just thinking about some essays I have to write," she lied.

"Oh. Are they due soon?"

"Tomorrow."

"What?! Then what are you doing here! Shoo! Shoo!" Giggling, Michelle ushered her out the door. "Go do your homework, young lady!"

Karis saluted, giggling herself, but half-heartedly. "Yes ma'am!" She turned on her heel and ran off towards her room as Michelle laughed lightly behind her. As she made her way back to her room, Karis thought, _I'll get to the bottom of this. Then they'll appreciate me. _She smiled longingly. _That'll be nice._

XXXX

As he worked on his math homework, Julian Townes heard a knock at his door. "Come in!" The door opened. To his displeasure, it was Ethan Dressler. Julian asked haughtily, "What do you want?"

"You told Roan Breckenridge to stay away from me," Ethan said matter-of-factly.

"Yup."

Ethan made a sound akin to that of a hissing snake. "Deliberately."

"Well, it sure wasn't by accident."

"Don't give me lip, Townes. Remember who you work for."

Julian stood up and gave Ethan an angry look. "Not anymore. I quit."

He had hoped for at least some semblance of a reaction on Ethan's face, but received no such satisfaction. Instead, Ethan said, "Fine."

Julian nearly did a double-take. "Really?" _That's it?_

"Don't look so shocked, Townes. Bemusement doesn't suit you. And working for me doesn't either, apparently." Ethan shrugged. "While I _am_ quite angry with you for throwing a wrench into my recruitment plans, I don't exactly need you anymore. I do admit, I am surprised that it took you this long to grow a spine. Why now?"

"Because I don't want to do this." At one point, Julian considered staying with Ethan all the way to watch as his plans inevitably crumbled, maybe even overthrow him, but after talking with Roan, he decided that his dignity and time weren't worth it. "That's all the explanation I'm going to give you, Dressler."

Ethan cocked his head at him, as if he were trying very, very hard to understand him. After a moment, he gave up. He rubbed his head, now sporting regrown black hair (apart from where his scar was), and said, "All right. But can I trust you not to leak my plans?"

"Can I trust you not to tell anyone about what I did in the Mafia?"

"Yes. There's no point of us going down together. You have my word." Ethan extended his hand, which Julian briefly shook.

"Deal," Julian said. "Now please go."

Ethan complied. As he turned around and left, Julian thought, _that was easier than I thought it would be. _

XXXX

Jake Morgendorffer opened the door and found himself faced with a boy with black hair pulled back into a ponytail, wearing black clothes, thin-rimmed glasses, and eyeliner. "Um," he said at the boy, before turning his head away and calling back into the house, "Quinn, uh, I think your date is here?"

Gage's face turned red. "Um, no, I have a girlfriend. I'm actually here to talk to Daria, Mr. Morgendorffer. And, ah, she's not my girlfriend either, just putting it out there."

"Oh," Jake said with a bemused and slightly embarrassed look on his face. He turned around and called, "Uh, Daria, a friend of yours is here?" with equal hesitation.

As he walked back inside, Daria appeared at the doorway. Gage tried to read her, but found her face as stony as always. _She kinda reminds me of Ethan._ "Hey, Daria."

She crossed her arms at him. "Hello, Gage. You can't change my mind. Jane already tried."

He gave her a pleading look. "C'mon, Daria, please. I'll spend less time with Jane, we can work it out-"

She silenced him with an upraised hand. Daria's stony visage crumbled for a moment as her shoulders sagged sadly. "That's not fair to the two of you."

"Daria, please. She doesn't want to see you go-"

"It's not like I'm leaving the country. Unless you want to date Quinn too," Daria said dryly. "Then in that case, I'd have to leave the planet."

Gage squirmed internally; he'd met Quinn before, and couldn't imagine talking to her in any universe for more than a minute before having to throw himself off a roof.

"I'm not particularly happy about this either," Daria said, "but I've made up my mind. I'll still see Jane every now and then."

"Daria, please-"

She huffed. "Don't beg, Gage. It doesn't suit you. Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go and pack my stuff for my orientation." And with that, she shut the door in his face. Feeling defeated, Gage shuffled back to his car, head bowed and his hands in his pockets. He opened the door and sat in the driver's seat, pulled out of the driveway, and drove back to Casa Lane. He couldn't bear to look at Jane for the brief drive, and neither of them could bear to speak.

XXXX

No sooner had Ben Nielsen, sophomore, journalism student, and Viper walked out of the bathroom on his dorm floor than Charles, another Viper, accosted him. "Boss wants to see you," Charles said.

Ben groaned. "All right. And quit calling him boss, all right? It's not like he's paying us for this crap."

"He said to bring all your journalism stuff."

"Hm. Well, at least I know I'm not getting an evaluation or something." Ben headed back to his room, grabbed his backpack, and ascended two floors to the door marked E. Dressler. Ben knocked two times, paused, and knocked three more times: the secret knock that Ethan insisted the Vipers use. _Doesn't having a secret knock make us look more suspicious? And for Chrissake, who's going to listen to the pattern of our knocks?_

"Come in!" exclaimed the steely voice from behind the door.

_Yes, master,_ Ben thought sarcastically as he entered Ethan's room. Its occupant was seated at his desk, writing an essay. Curious, Ben inched as close as he dared to see what it was about; apparently, biopsychology.

"So, as you have hopefully gathered, I have a specific task for you," Ethan said, not taking his eyes off his work.

"Yeah," Ben said. "I got that. What is it?"

"It's crucial to the plan. What nobody knows, Ben, is that you have a crucial part to play."

"Whoopee."

"I can find someone else if you're not interested," Ethan said with an extra layer of ice in his voice.

While Ben was tempted to take up that offer and let someone else handle the responsibility, he relished the idea of gaining more respect from the other Vipers. _Hopefully, whatever this is_ is _as important as he's hyping it up to be._ "No, I'm good. What do you want me to do?"

Ethan explained what he wanted Ben to do, carefully and concisely, without leaving out even the smallest details.

Ben raised an eyebrow. "You really think Blofeld's going to let me interview him?"

"I don't see why not," Ethan grumbled. Had he seen Ben's look of disdain, he might have felt perturbed. "You're a writer for the Boarder. That rag thrives on the nostalgia of Fielding's old guard."

"Hey-" Ben exclaimed with hurt in his voice.

Ethan quickly interjected, "Oh, prove me wrong. Anyway, before you interrupted me, I was going to say that Fielding's alumni are always hungry to flap their gums to eager little reporters like you. That's why, in this case, there won't be a spokesperson to mediate the conversation between you two. Boarder interviews give the old farts the opportunity to bark the muck that would otherwise put their wives to sleep. You'll be interviewing James Blofeld. He's sixty-five years old, a Congressman, and alumnus. Apparently, he's rather well-respected." Ethan brushed a paper across his desk towards Ben, who took it gingerly. "That's a list of questions I'd like you to ask him."

Ben read the paper's contents, and frowned at them in confusion. "Uh, this is a list of instruments you can use to siphon blood from people with."

With a sigh, Ethan took his eyes off of his essay and handed Ben the correct paper. "Thank you...sir," said Ben. Ethan showed no pleasure at being addressed that way. _Well, so much for trying to get on his good side._ "May I ask why these particular questions?"

"You could. But I wouldn't answer."

_Well, screw you too then._ "And when's this interview supposed to happen?"

Ethan glanced at his watch. "In about ten minutes."

Ben started in surprise. "Say what?"

"Oh, I already set up the interview over the phone. Took a lot of sound editing to make my voice sound like Daniels'. You have about five minutes to appear in front of Ferrin House."

"That's on the other side of the campus!"

Ethan shrugged. "Get going."

Muttering a curse, Ben threw his backpack on and charged out the door, almost knocking a small red-headed girl down in the process. "Sorry!" he exclaimed as he took off, muttering even more curses, most of which were about Ethan.

As Karis regained her footing, she thought about the conversation she had just eavesdropped on. _In front of Ferrin? It's a start._ She looked to her left to make sure Ethan had not seen her. Seeing that his door had shut, she breathed a sigh of relief, and ran out of the building after Ben, making sure she was never close enough to him so that he might detect her. As the two made their way down Fielding road, Karis imagined the proud look she hoped she would get from Michelle.

She kept a close eye on Ben as she could, but with sunglasses, it was a little difficult. So that was why Karis was too slow to react when Ben turned to look behind him. Feeling her heart leap into her throat, Karis stared dumbly at her quarry for a brief moment before she realized she'd stopped in her tracks. _Moron! Do something! _She noticed a group of laughing girls gradually overtaking her to her right. Quickly, Karis stepped alongside them and put on a false smile. They didn't seem to notice that she was even there, and Ben was apparently equally indifferent, because he turned back around and continued on his present course. As the group of girls turned to walk in another direction, Karis thought to herself, _Thank god he didn't recognize me. Maybe he wasn't in the Mafia when they went after us?_

As the road got shorter and the distance between her and Ben grew longer, Karis noticed that there were fewer students with whom she could blend into with as they got closer to Ferrin. She knew that soon, if Ben ever checked behind him, he'd see her and probably grow suspicious. Biting her lip in frustration, Karis twisted around and walked away. _Well, I may not know what he's going to talk to Blofeld about, but I think I have enough stuff to tell Michelle._

A few minutes later, Karis was eagerly bounding up to the front door of Blair when she heard a familiar voice call out, "Hey, Chap!" She turned and saw Roan walking towards her, holding a portfolio under one arm.

"Hey, Roan."

Roan looked down at her with a slight smile. "Haven't seen you for a few days. How's everything?"

"Good."

"Just good?"

"Yeah."

"Mm." Roan smiled teasingly. "Talked to Armand yet?"

Karis's face turned as red as her hair. "Nuh uh," she mumbled.

"Aw. Gotta get 'em while they're young, kid."

"Yeah," Karis said vacantly, eyeing Blair's front door.

Roan noticed and asked, "Sorry, am I keeping ya from something?"

"I just need to talk to Michelle."

"Urgent ASPS business?"

"Kinda." Before she could stop herself, Karis found herself explaining what she'd been up to. She hoped that Roan would approve. Instead, to her surprise, the senior looked agitated.

"Karis, you shouldn't go bugging the Vipers. I know most of them from when I was in the Mafia; if they feel threatened by you, they _will_ come after you again."

"I'm not _bugging_ them; I'm just trying to find out what they're up to."

"That's not worth getting yourself beaten up over again!"

"They won't beat me up!" Karis exclaimed.

"But it's just not worth the risk!" Roan bowed her head and pinched the bridge of her nose in exasperation. "Ugh. Karis, I have big responsibilities now that I'm in student government. And I have an image to keep up. I can't go beat up people for you if anyone comes after you anymore."

"You don't have to do _anything_ for me anymore, Roan. I can take care of myself." When Roan didn't say anything, Karis blurted out, "Do you think I can't?"

"Calm down, Karis! Don't get so worked up over nothing."

"Over nothing? This is important to me!"

"Cool it! Yeah, I'm suspicious too. But you shouldn't try to take this thing on yourself-"

"Look who's talking. You said nobody should try to institute change by themselves, and you said that's _exactly_ what you want to do!"

Roan was beginning to get angry at Karis's attitude. "I'm not trying to become the stinking dictator of Fielding, Karis, I just want to help make changes. If nobody else does it, who will? Do you have a problem with that?"

"No. I have a problem with you being a hypocrite!" she blurted out.

A hurt scowl appeared on Roan's face. "You know what? You can talk to me again when you stop acting like a typical teenage brat. Otherwise, piss off." And with that, she walked off.

_I am not a brat!_ Karis thought angrily. _I'll show her._ She quickly ran up the stairs, past the water gun armed girls in the main lobby, and up to Michelle's room, which she banged her fist on loudly. "Michelle! Michelle! Open up, I-"

The door flew open as Michelle emerged, cane in hand. Her hair was frazzled and she wore only a tank top and shorts. There were bags under her eyes. "Karis," she said slowly, "Think very carefully about the next words that come out of your mouth, because if they don't justify waking me from a very nice nap, I'll destroy you. Capiche?"

Karis swallowed. "Uh, yes ma'am." Her tone became more eager and she spoke faster: "I eavesdropped on Ethan. I think I know what he's planning to do with the Vipers."

Michelle sighed and cracked her neck. Leaning up against the doorframe, she said groggily, "I'm listening."

"Well, I didn't get the whole thing, but he's somehow going to use James Blofeld-"

"Who?"

"I think he's some kind of politician. He's going to use him to get rid of Falwell."

Frowning, Michelle wondered out loud, "How the hell is he going to do _that?_"

"I don't know," Karis admitted in a despondent tone. "That's all I heard."

Running her hand through her hair in exasperation, Michelle said, "We'll talk about this later. I need some sleep. But in the meantime, go find Wehrung and tell him this. Roan too."

"Okay," Karis said uncomfortably.

"All right." Michelle shut the door and practically hurled herself onto her bed.

Outside, Karis shuffled off, feeling somewhat dejected. She'd hoped for at least some degree of appreciation. Nothing. She felt empty.

XXXX

Dusk was settling in as Ben Nielsen returned to Ethan's room. He did the secret knock and Ethan, his yellow eyes glowing hungrily, let him in. "Well?" he asked.

Ben huffed as he slapped a recorder into Ethan's hand. "You're welcome, your majesty. Interview went perfectly. Asked him all the questions. Hell, I asked him _follow-up_ questions. Do I at least get an Ultra-Cola?"

Ethan rolled his eyes before reaching a hand into his pocket, withdrawing a five-dollar bill. "Thanks for helping me to take down Falwell."

_Asshole._ Ben, feeling very much slighted, began to think sincerely traitorous thoughts before Ethan withdrew another bill from his pocket and handed it to him. This time, there were three digits in the corner of the bill. "And that," said Ethan, "is for staying quiet, as I'm sure you will."

The treasonous ideas swimming in Ben's head abruptly drowned. "You can count on me, boss," Ben said.

"Good. Now please take your leave."

"All right." Ben left, closing the door silently behind him.

Ethan took the recorder and pressed the play button. The interview lasted for around twenty minutes, but it had everything he needed.

"Too easy," Ethan said as he smiled triumphantly.

XXXX

_She's being so unreasonable. BOTH of them are. There's got to be a way to change Daria's mind; she can't leave. And just because she's spending less time than Jane! How petty is she? For crying out loud….gah, this blows. I'll talk to her after class-_

"Mr. THYSTUN!"

Gage started in his seat as his surrounding classmates giggled at him. "Mm?"

Anthony DeMartino stared crossly at him from behind his desk. "Please take your head out of the clouds, and ANSWER THE QUESTION. Who invaded SPAIN in the 8th century?"

_That's a joke. _"The Moors."

"I'm SORRY, Mr. Thystun. The correct answer was the MOOPS!"

Gage frowned in confusion. "Say what?"

"Yes MR. THYSTUN." DeMartino seemed to grow taller and taller as the light in the room began to fade. "YOU GOT IT WRONG. ONE OF THE MANY THINGS YOU'VE SCREWED UP. YOU CAN'T DO ANYTHING RIGHT!"

There was a flash of lightning and DeMartino was gone, and Daria and Jane were standing in his place, glaring angrily at him.

"You ruined our friendship," Daria said.

"Why would I date someone as selfish as you?" Jane asked.

They too disappeared and were replaced with a mirror image of Gage. This doppelganger's face was sunken and sallow, full of scratches, his hair matted, and wrapped in a straitjacket. "Somehow, life will always fall apart for you," the double hissed.

"No!" Gage screamed as he shot up in his bed.

"Mm blub brug. Whudyou doin' 'ere Maris? Go 'way," Wehrung mumbled in his sleep.

Gage exhaled rapidly and put his hand to his forehead; it came away sweaty. It had been a long time since he'd had a nightmare; his anti-schizophrenia medication worked on both reality and dreams. One thought was going through his head: _Jane. _

As quickly as he could without waking Wehrung up, Gage threw on a pair of shoes, pulled on his favorite overcoat, and grabbed his car-keys. He shuffled silently out of Harris Studios and stepped into his adopted grandfather's car, wincing as the engine noisily roared to life. He pulled out of the driveway and drove straight to Casa Lane. His head swam with all the things he wanted to say as he made his way over. Gage could feel his heart pounding as he parked the car. Quickly, without bothering to take the keys out of the ignition, he ran up to the door of Casa Lane and pounded on the door.

"Jane! Jane! I need to talk to you!"

The door opened, and something hit Gage so hard on the top of his head that he passed out.

XXXX

"Did you have to hit him so hard?"

"It was the guitar that did all the work, Janie."

"Uh huh. Wait, I think he's waking up. Gage? Are you okay?"

Gage's eyes shot open. After he was momentarily blinded by sunlight seeping through the window, he saw that Trent and Jane were standing over him with concerned looks on their faces. He looked at Jane. "IjustwanttotellyouthatI'llbethereforanythingandIrespectanychoicesyouwanttomakeandthatyourfriendshipwithDariaistooimportanttoscrewupoverme."

Jane started. "Did you have a couple cups of coffee before you came over?"

Suddenly, Gage felt a stabbing pain on top of his head. He clutched it and groaned. "No, I just felt I really had to talk to you." His eyes trailed over to Trent. "And what did you hit me with? I feel like my skull's gonna split any sec now."

"Stratocaster," answered Trent.

Gage winced. "Ow."

"I'll get you another ice pack," Jane said. "Don't go and pound on my neighbors' doors while I'm gone."

"Haw haw."

As soon a Jane left, the phone rang. The pain in Gage's skull seemed to get worse with every electronic wail; to his relief, Trent picked it up. "Yeah? Mmhm. Yeah, he's here. I'll tell him. All right. Bye." Trent hung up. He turned to Gage. "That was your brother. He wanted to know where you were, and wanted to remind you that you have to go to school soon."

"Wehrung's not my brother, but thanks Trent," Gage said.

Jane returned with a plastic bag filled with ice, which she pressed on the spot where Gage had been hit. "You feeling all right enough to go to school?"

He winced from the ice. "If it's all the same to you, I think I'll just play hooky for the day."

"Okay," she said. "But do you mind if I go? I have a math test. Trent will take care of you."

"Well….okay."

She nodded in assent and began to ascend the stairs to go retrieve her backpack. Gage suddenly exclaimed, "But Jane?"

She stopped and looked back at him. "Yeah?"

"When you come back from school...ow….can we talk, please? About the whole thing with Daria?"

She paused. "...we'll see." Jane continued her ascent and disappeared from view.

XXXX

At Harris Studios, Wehrung typed furiously at his keyboard while Michelle sat back in Gage's beanbag chair, trying to relax. The constant pitter-patter of keys being smashed was making it difficult. "Talk to me, Wehrung," she said. "Can you get into Ethan's computer?"

He let out a frustrated grunt. "No. 'Cause the thing is, when you register a computer at Fielding, it automatically gets entered into a database based on its IP address. But he's not showing up. Like, at all."

"What? Why?"

He shrugged. "Could mean a coupla' things. Like, he could be using some really expensive, high-tech antivirus software that makes him all but invisible to me. Twenty-first century kinda crap. That, or he's just not using the internet. Or both, if he's _that_ paranoid."

"Well, either way, he's definitely trying to keep something hidden. And if Karis is right about him trying to get rid of Falwell, we have to stop him."

"Can he even do it?"

"I wouldn't put it past him. Tomorrow, we'll confront him. Try to talk some sense into him."

"And if we can't?"

"We will."

XXXX

After classes were over for the day, Ethan bought a sandwich from the student store and immediately headed up to his room, knowing that it would be a rather long night. He finished his homework within twenty minutes and immediately began listening to Ben Daniel's interview, which he simultaneously transcribed for his own convenience.

Ben: Hello Congressman. I'm Ben Nielsen. Thank you for meeting me on such short notice.

Blofeld: Not at all. Even during my days as a student, I was hoping that someday the Boarder would take an interest in me. I just didn't think I'd have to be as old as sin to warrant an interview!

Ben: Naw, Congressman. You look like you could give some Olympians a run for their money.

Blofeld: Heh, the flattery is appreciated, son. And you can call me Jim.

Ben: All right, Jim. Shall we get down to the nitty gritty?

Blofeld: That's why I'm here.

In the next ten minutes of the interview, Ben asked Blofeld all the questions Ethan had written up for him. They were mostly standard fare: what his policies were, how he thought his policies were going to change. A few inquiries into how he became a Congressman to butter him up. There were a few choice responses on Blofeld's part that Ethan knew he could use, but it all hinged on the critical phrase. Without it, the plan would fall apart, and he'd have to start all over again. Eventually, they came to the critical part:

Ben: So, I've seen on the news that you want to cooperate with the Headmaster on vouchers. Do vouchers have any place in your plan to expand private education, and have you successfully managed to get the Headmaster on board with this idea?

Blofeld: Well, Mr. Falwell and I did actually have a bit of a talk around a week ago. I'm afraid, however, that I cannot divulge exactly went on in that meeting. But I can say that he was very gracious, receptive, and open to new ideas.

Ben: No kidding? Sure he's not turning too liberal for your taste?

Blofeld: Ha ha! Yes, I'm afraid he's just going to have to go.

When Ethan heard that part, he felt a stab of triumph. Excellent; well done Ben. He stopped the recording and opened an audio program on his computer, and began to splice the interview into the choice parts he wanted.

In the course of merely two hours, Ethan had successfully cultivated his plan to bring down Carter Falwell. He exhaled triumphantly. _Finally, things are starting to get interesting again. _He stuck a flash drive into the computer and copied the files, creating a backup in case he somehow lost the original files. Lazily leaning back in his chair, Ethan thought, _Now that that's done with, I can focus on trying to get re-acquainted with the ASPS._

Suddenly, he felt his stomach grumble, and checking his watch, saw that it was seven thirty at night. _But first, dinner. I do hope they have steak tonight._ He opened a latched drawer and dropped the flash drive in it before locking it with a padlock.

He left his room, locking it on the way out, and headed down the hall for the elevator. Meanwhile, on the opposite end of the hall, Roan and her friend Cheryl peeked out from behind a corner.

"Never seen the Vampire before. Gotta say, I'm kinda disappointed," Cheryl said, rubbing the right part of her head, which was bald. The left side was home to chestnut-brown hair that fell just past her shoulder. "Thought he'd at least have a cape."

"Shh," Roan whispered. She looked down both hallways to make sure nobody was around. She turned to Cheryl. "He comes back, or if a Viper shows up, you got it covered, right?"

"Don't worry about it," Cheryl reassured her. "Just get it over with; I'm hungry."

Roan removed her shoes and silently shuffled up to Ethan's door. She knocked twice to make absolutely sure nobody else was inside. Satisfied with the silence, she withdrew her Swiss-Army knife from her pocket and flipped open a thin rod, which she stuck in the doorknob's keyhole. After twisting the rod around slightly, she heard a satisfying pop. Roan swiftly entered Ethan's room and began to look for anything that would confirm what Karis had told her. Despite the fact that she was still angry at the ASP for her brattiness, Roan couldn't stop thinking about what she'd been told about Ethan's plans. If it was all true, she couldn't sit idly by.

Roan quickly spotted the padlock and nearly laughed. _For all your talk of being a genius, Dressler, you suck at hiding stuff._ After picking the lock open, Roan pulled out the drawer and looked inside. She felt a leap of excitement in her heart when she took the flash-drive out, but that turned into an icy shard of fear when she heard a knock on the door.

XXXX

Outside, Cheryl watched as a seventh-grade boy walked up the hall. She peeked only slightly from around the corner so he wouldn't see her, but since he was wearing glasses, she wasn't too worried until he approached Ethan's door and knocked. "Boss?" squeaked the boy. "Boss? I have a question?"

Cheryl inhaled. Here I go, she thought. She turned around the corner and ran at the boy, waving her arms above her head. "What are you doing out?!"

He gave her a look of both fright and confusion. "Huh?"

"Don't you know we're having a lockdown drill?!"

His face paled. "N-no. I don't live here."

_Boy, am I lucky,_ Cheryl thought. "Well, then get out! Before I report you to the CSOs!"

The boy shrieked and ran away. By the time he was gone, a sleepy-looking girl poked her head out of the room neighboring Ethan's. "We're not actually having a drill, are we? I was in the middle of my beauty sleep."

"Nah," Cheryl said with a chuckle.

While the girl nodded and retreated back into her room, Roan emerged from Ethan's room, pocketing the flash drive. Cheryl scratched at her nose-ring and said, "So, mission accomplished?"

"Yeah," Roan said.

"Good. Let's go get some god-damn food, I'm starving."

"You go ahead," Roan said before running down the hall to the elevators. She called back, "I need to crack this baby open!"

XXXX

Later that night, just as Trent Lane pulled the Tank into the driveway of Harris Studios, a motorcyclist pulled up on the other side of the street. Jane and Trent watched as the leather-clad biker, not bothering to remove their helmet, charged up to the door of Harris Studios, knocked excitedly on it, and was let in quickly in response.

"Gage gets more and more interesting clientele," Jane flatly observed.

"Or he's a secret agent and that's his courier," Trent said. He turned and saw Jane giving him a disdainful look. "What? Could be."

"Uh huh." Jane stepped out of the car and walked up to the front porch of Harris Studios; the door was still wide open. The moment she walked inside, Wehrung rushed past her from kitchen and ran up the stairs, followed by the biker, a tall girl with platinum blonde hair, who gave the confused Jane a fleeting "Hi."

_Who the hell…_ thought Jane.

"Jane?" She turned around and saw Gage standing in the doorway of the kitchen, a surprised look on his face. "You're…you came," he said in disbelief.

"You didn't think I would?" she replied. "You said you wanted to talk."

Gage hesitated.

Jane's heart sank. "Oh."

His shoulders sagged. "I'm sorry. It's just that things between us have been kinda bad, I started to think things were beginning to fall apart."

She walked up to him and took his hand in hers, and smiled. He felt himself smiling slightly too. "Well," she said, "you want sit down and talk it through?"

He nodded, and his hesitant smile became a genuinely happy one. "Sounds like a plan to me."

XXXX

"This isn't like Ethan," Wehrung said as he hacked into the flash drive, extracting its files.

"What?" said Roan, who was standing behind him, watching nervously as the progress-bar slowly filled up on his computer screen. "He hasn't tried to bring down a school administration before?"

"No and no," Wehrung said. "He's not this _sloppy_. A flash drive? And in a drawer protected with a padlock? Knowing Ethan, he would have kept this thing on him at all times."

"Maybe he was paranoid he'd lose it?"

"Well, whatever the case…" The progress bar filled completely, "his shortsightedness is our salvation!" He laughed maniacally.

_Who's the crazy one in this group again?_ Roan thought.

Thirty-seven files appeared; thirty-five were word documents, all labeled "essay." The remaining two were audio files. One was labeled "Blofeld Interview" and the second was "Falwell's Demise."

"_Astronomically_ sloppy," Wehrung said. He clicked on the second of the two.

His audio player popped up, and they heard a deep, commanding voice say, almost happily, "If Falwell screws up the voucher implementation, which he is bound to, we'll fire him."

And that was it. "_That's_ his demise?" Roan said in confusion. "How is that supposed to take down the Headmaster of Fielding Prep?"

"Hold on," Wehrung said. He played it again.

"What?" asked Roan.

"Listen."

Roan listened closer as Wehrung played it again. When he did, she noticed something; Blofeld's voice seemed to be distorted; it 'jumped.' The phrases did not quite fit in with each other. "He cut this together from other bits of something else," Roan concluded.

"Uh huh," Wehrung said. He withdrew the flash-drive and handed it to Roan. "Here ya go. But I gotta ask. What are you going to do with that? Give it to Falwell?"

"Exactly. Any objections?"

Wehrung shook his head timidly. "Not really."

"All right. Thanks, Alex."

He shriveled at the sound of his first name. "You're welcome," he muttered.

Roan walked out and as she descended the stairs, she looked into the building's main studio and saw Jane and Gage making out. She wrinkled her nose at the sight before leaving the building, putting on her helmet, and shooting off down the street on her motorcycle.

XXXX

Ethan grabbed the portrait of himself with his brother and sister off of his desk and hurled it at a wall, where the glass shattered into pieces. He turned to Ben Grossbard and Dean Cunningham, the former of whom swallowed nervously. Because even though he seemed by all rights pissed, Ethan's face and voice were perfectly composed and cold.

"I'm pretty sure who's responsible, so over the next day or two, I want you two to camp out outside the Main Office and watch for any of the ASPS or Breckenridge. And if you see any of them, hold them up and search them for the flash drive. If you find it, bring it straight to me. Understand?"

The two saluted him. Ethan rolled his eyes. "Quit wasting time pretending to be soldiers and go, nitwits!"

"Yessir!" Ben and Dean said simultaneously before scampering out. Ethan sat down in his chair, his hands tightening around the ends of the armrests in frustration. He eyed his landline phone and considered making the call and finally putting his plan completely into motion. His hand reached out to it, but then Ethan slowly retracted it. _What's the point of going through with it if I won't even be able to see the results for myself? If Falwell finds out, I'll be finished. I'll wait. Dean, Ben, you better not fail me._

XXXX

The very first thing Roan did when she woke up was put on her uniform and pocket the flash drive. Skipping both her usual early-morning shower and breakfast, she rushed out of her dorm and broke out into a light jog, heading towards the Main Office. She'd been thinking all night how she was going to present the evidence of the Vipers' activities to Falwell, and she thought she had come up with a decent explanation; she'd tell him that she found the flash drive on the ground and opened it on her computer to see if she could find out to whom it belonged, and found the evidence.

Roan couldn't help feeling a little hesitant in doing this; who was she to dictate a student's future? If Falwell _did_ discipline Ethan, it would inevitably screw his future up somehow. But…Ethan was trying to ruin a man's career and try to change the school without any input from his fellow students. It wasn't just undemocratic, it was downright wrong. Machiavellian_. There are plenty of good ways to make meaningful change,_ Roan thought. _Plotting behind someone else's back isn't one of them._

The Main Office was soon in sight, but Roan heard a boy shout, "Hey, she stole my flash drive!" She turned and saw two hulking boys jogging towards her. "Give it back!"

Crap, Roan thought. There were students around; if she ran, she would only look guilty. The MO was so close, and by extension, Carter Falwell. She could practically taste Ethan's expulsion. _So close! I can't screw it up now. _So Roan tried something different: she stood perfectly still, waiting for the oncoming confrontation.

Dean and Ben caught up to her, slightly bemused looks on their faces; they had both expected her to keep running. "Give us back our flash drive."

"What flash drive?"

"Quit lying, Roan, give it back."

Roan crossed her arms over her chest at them and spoke loud enough so that more nearby students, of which there were not that many, could hear. "I don't have any flash drive. Now leave me alone!" To her dismay, her peers did not seem to be particularly interested in her plight.

Ben chuckled, and Dean stepped forward. "Roan, we know you have it. Give it here. Otherwise we take it. Sure, we'll get into trouble. Not big trouble though. And you, miss big-shot, will be Roan: Student Governor and thief. Also, I have no qualms about hitting girls. Fork it over unless you want a black eye."

"Bite me," she replied.

Dean shrugged. "Suit yourself." He stepped forward, dodging Roan's clumsy swing at his face and quickly put her in an arm lock. Since she was in her Fielding uniform, they knew the only place she could have the flash drive was her inner jacket pocket. Ben took it out, put it in his own, and jogged off. After Ben was out of sight, Dean released Roan from the arm lock. She gave him an infuriated look, but said nothing. He saluted at her with a smirk. "Thank you for your cooperation," he snickered before jogging off after his partner.

Rubbing her sore shoulder, Roan considered still going to Falwell, but she knew that without any proof, she might as well not even try. _Dressler…I swear to God, I am going to rip your goddamn head off._

The battered senior made her way back to Ransom-Howard to try and take the flash drive from Ethan again. She was through the doors and halfway to his room when Dean and Ben intercepted her in the hallway. "Again, Breckenridge?" Dean rolled his eyes. "Get lost."

She tried to shove her way past them, but Ben returned the favor with an actual shove, a very rough one. Roan stumbled backwards, and Dean cracked his knuckles. "Remember, Roan. No qualms."

_They're too large. God damn it, there's no getting past them. _

Roan gave them both the bird and stalked off, and the two thugs gave each other a high-five. "Bitch was running scared, man," said Ben.

"Shut up, Ben," said Dean. "Let's give the drive back to the boss."

XXXX

The very moment Ben and Dean returned, Ethan snatched the flash drive away and stuck it into his computer, nervously watching the progress bar gradually fill up. He breathed a sigh of relief when he saw that Roan Breckenridge hadn't removed any of the files on the drive. And if she was going to Falwell with the drive directly, that also meant she hadn't made copies. _Breckenridge, you had me fooled. I never took you as a complete idiot. _

"We good, boss?" Ben said.

Ethan waved at them dismissively. "Yes, you're good. Now leave me. Close the door on your way out."

Once they were both gone, Ethan allowed himself a fist-pump. After his brief moment of celebration, he picked up his cell phone and dialed a number. "Hello? Is this the office of Leandra Wolper? Oh, hi Ms. Wolper. My name is Aiden Brown. I have something you might be really keen to hear. It's an interview. Yes. Uh huh. Yes, I can e-mail the file to you. Yes, soon. I guarantee you'll enjoy it. All right, bye." The moment the call was over, Ethan dropped the cell phone to the floor and crushed it underneath his heel.

XXXX

Wehrung was nervously waiting for a last-minute essay he'd written to come out of the printer at the far end of Gage's desk when a small red icon appeared on the bottom-left corner of his computer screen-an indicator that a new IP address had appeared in the Fielding mainframe. _Huh._ He clicked the icon, which took him to a list of all the addresses. The new one was highlighted in blue. _Well, it's probably not Ethan's, but I'll check. _He clicked on it, and saw that the computer was registered to an Aiden Brown. _Yeah, thought so. _Wehrung quit the program and went back to working on his paper. Unbeknownst to him, only a minute after the new IP appeared, it was gone just as quickly.

XXXX

Lounging around after classes that day in her room wearing a fuzzy purple bathrobe, Michelle was just about to head to the bathroom when she heard a voice. "Hey Michelle. It's Zara."

"Uh, hey." Wehrung's younger sister never talked to her on a casual basis. "Everything okay?"

"Yeah, everything's fine. It's just that some senior's in the main lobby, and she wants to talk to you."

"Does she have really blond hair and black earrings?"

"Yup."

"Ah, I know who it is. Thanks." Feeling too lazy to change out of the robe or put on her artificial eye, Michelle headed downstairs to meet with Roan. Once she knew she was in the lobby, she said, "Roan? You there?"

"Yeah. Michelle, we have to talk. Did Karis tell you about-"

"Uh huh."

"All of it?"

"Uh huh."

"I went to Ethan's dorm, and he had a flash drive. Wehrung hacked it, and there was definitely something related to Falwell on that thing, so I went to take it to him. But the Vipers took it from me, and not gently."

"Are you okay?"

"A little roughed up, but fine. Smith, I'm worried. It sounds like this plan of his is real, and he's going through with it."

Michelle took a deep breath. "All right. Tomorrow, the ASPS confront him and tell him to quit it. And we'll do it in front of all his new cronies. Do you know where they might meet?"

"Beats the hell out of me. But…it might the old Mafia headquarters. I'll call Julian and ask him. I'll show you where it is right now, if you want."

"All right. Let's go."

As Roan and Michelle walked to where the basement was, they planned how they were going to take down Ethan. By the end of the night, they had a plan. "Hope it works," said Roan. "You sure four people is all it's going to take?"

"If all goes according to plan, should just take one person."

"You don't want to stage this out in the open?"

"No," said Michelle. "I've had enough drama for a lifetime. I just need you three with me as backup in case something goes wrong. So I'll talk to Karis later today and get her to apologize to you. Sound good?"

"No objections."

"All right." Michelle turned to leave. "Bye Roan. And thanks."

Roan saluted her. "Sure thing."

XXXX

After classes were over the following day, Ethan came back to his dorm and found an envelope half-slipped under his door. He opened it, and read the typed message:

_We re-considered. The Black Hand would be glad to join the Vipers. Would you mind meeting at the old Mafia headquarters at 4 PM so that we may talk?_

_-Greg Hamill_

Ethan couldn't help but smirk. So now Hamill wanted to crawl back to him. Although he no longer had any need for the Black Hand's resources, seeing Hamill kiss up to him would be a worthy excursion. Ethan checked his watch; it was 3:30. Might as well head over now.

He dropped off his backpack in his room, and for nostalgia's sake, shed his Fielding uniform in favor of his white dress-shirt, red tie, and black business jacket and pants.

XXXX

When Ethan arrived at the basement, he was surprised to find that the vast majority of Vipers were there. _What? I didn't summon them. Where's Hamill? And has the basement always been this big? _He looked them all in the eye and asked, "What are you all doing here?"

There were confused whispers and glances amongst them. "Uh, didn't you call us in, boss?" Dean asked. "It was in the e-mail."

"E-mail?" Ethan was nearly livid. "You morons! I don't use the internet!"

"And how the hell were we supposed to know that?" Ben Nielsen asked with exasperation.

"Don't blame you for being mad," said a distinctly female voice. "He never did talk about himself all that much." All the Vipers turned their heads to the entrance, where four figures stood: Michelle Smith, Roan Breckenridge, Karis Chapman, and Alex Wehrung. Michelle stepped forward; her black hair was tied back in a ponytail, and she was wearing her artificial eye, but still had her cane. Ethan got a bad feeling in his gut when he saw that.

The rest of the posse stepped down. One lone Viper, Chuck Jaffe, who was by all means a go-getter as well as a kiss-up, stepped forward and loudly exclaimed, "You are not welcome here! This is Viper domain!" He made the mistake of roughly grabbing Karis's arm, and the small and easily frightened Brit squeaked in distress and instinctively lashed out with her fist. Chuck screamed and his hands flew to his mouth, hopelessly groping for the front teeth that were no longer there.

More than a few of the Vipers backed away after that display; Karis herself looked shocked at what she had done. Meanwhile, Michelle, Wehrung, and Ethan exchanged long looks. Eventually, Ethan spoke up first. "Hello, Michelle. Alex."

Wehrung cringed. "Feh. So _now_ we're finally on a first-name basis, huh?"

Ethan turned to Michelle. "You managed to pull this together. Impressive."

"Whatever," Michelle said dismissively. She raised her voice. "I know about your plan for Carter Falwell. And I am not letting it happen. You are done, Ethan. Kaput. Finite."

He sighed in exasperation. "It's not like you can stop my plan at this point, Michelle. It's in motion."

Roan ground her teeth angrily.

"Regardless," said Michelle, "You are no longer in charge of this group Ethan. And that's final. Don't make me say it again."

"Failsafe four," Karis added in a nervous voice.

Ethan became noticeably paler for a moment before smirking smugly. "Don't forget, I know all of your failsafes, too. Which puts us at a stalemate." He locked eyes with Michelle. "Nobody gives me orders. Ever."

Michelle suddenly saw an opening. "Is that right?" She swung her head around, looking at all the Vipers. She exclaimed, "You're all a tough bunch. Believe me, I know. But few of you are tougher than me, and Dmitri Vagin sure as hell wasn't. And _this_ guy…" she turned to Ethan, "…couldn't beat Dmitri Vagin in a fight if he had weighted gloves. He's not fit to lead any of you. I'll prove it. Right here, right now." She stripped off her jacket, pulled off her tie, and put up her fists. "C'mon, Ethan. Throw one at me."

Ethan tried not to show his fear and distress, but he knew immediately he had lost, and that it was his fault. The Vipers were, after all, not his friends; they were all underlings that he had united through a combination of promises, the idea of a common goal, and a little fear sprinkled on the side. They expected a strong person to lead them; someone who could win in a fight, who could stand up to anyone. They wanted someone invincible to look up to. Ethan, who could barely bench-press a few pounds, had no such physical advantage. He only had his height and ghoulish looks.

"Well, Dressler?" Michelle assumed a fighting stance. "Let's see who's tougher." The confident smile on her face told Ethan what he already knew, but it also put a knife in his heart. The girl...the _friend_ he had always admired and respected was _eager_ to beat him to a pulp and humiliate him.

XXXX

Michelle hoped that the smile on her face was hiding her true feelings. Fighting Ethan was the last thing she wanted to do, mostly because she swore to herself that after beating Dmitri, she would never do this again. But now Ethan had forced her hand. And she did not like the idea of fighting an old friend all that much either.

They locked eyes for a minute before a look of pure hatred gradually formed on Ethan's face Michelle's false smile melted. Without another word, he turned around and stalked off, as dozens of Vipers watched him leave. There was a momentary stunned silence until some random Viper laughed, "Pft, pansy."

"What a joke."

"He didn't even try. At least Dmitri tried."

One particularly large Viper laughed, "C'mon, how hard is it to fight a blind girl-" His head snapped backward as Michelle's palm made rapid contact with his forehead. Every Viper's eyes were now fixed on her. They ignored their injured compatriot, who loudly stumbled back into a wall before collapsing to the floor, clutching his face and groaning in pain.

"Listen up, chumps!" Michelle yelled. "You're now officially disbanded. No more Vipers, no more Mafia, no nothing! And if I hear that any of you have made any more stupid vigilante clubs, I'll stick my cane so far up your asses that I'll turn you all straight! Now scram!"

They obeyed, some more quickly than others. When the ASPS were all alone, Karis whistled. "Blimey."

Wehrung cackled madly. "Boy, did you see the looks on their faces?"

Michelle turned to him somberly. "Did you see Ethan's?" He fell silent.

"Should we-" Karis started.

"No," Michelle said. "We're probably the last people he wants to see right now."

Wehrung exhaled and shrugged his shoulders. "Then what do we do now?"

"Well," Michelle said as she removed her 'eye' and brandished her cane, "I don't think there's anything we _can_ do. So for now, I say we go to your place, tell Gage what happened, and hope Michael's made something other than soup for once."

"I approve of this plan," said Wehrung.

"Ditto," Karis said.

"You comin', Roan?" asked Wehrung.

Roan shrugged. "Yeah, sure. Why the hell not."

XXXX

The first thing Ethan did when he was alone in his room was take his lamp and hurl it at his wall as he held himself back from screeching in rage. He felt more than angry and humiliated; he felt betrayed. _Michelle….How could she? How COULD she?_ Ethan looked in his mirror and saw tears welling up in his eyes. He angrily rubbed them out. _I am not sad, god damn it! I'm furious!_He hated Michelle. He hated the ASPS. And he hated himself most of all; for letting his emotions get the better of him. For failing.

Ethan turned to look at a photograph on his desk: the only picture the ASPS had ever taken together. He was unscarred and stern-looking; the still brown-haired, smiling Michelle had a simultaneously laughing and distressed-looking Wehrung in a headlock, Karis looked a little shy, and Gage was crossing his arms confidently at the camera.

Ethan took the picture and held it in one hand. The longer he stared at it, the more his heart ached. It was too much. He raised the portrait above his head.

Before he could hurl it to the floor and stomp on it, his phone rang. Ethan froze. _Telemarketer?_ He dropped the picture to the floor and picked up the phone. "I'm not interested in whatever you're selling, so up yours."

"Hmph, you don't get very many calls, do you?" a familiar female voice sardonically observed.

Ethan's eyes nearly bugged out of his head when he realized who was on the other end of the line. His hand started trembling so badly that he almost dropped the receiver.

"Yo?" the receiver buzzed. "Ethan? Ethaaaaaan. You still there?"

"Y-yes," he stammered as he lifted the phone back up to his ear. "Yes, Dylan. I'm here."

-With many thanks to Kristen Bealer for her extensive beta-reading! And to Roentgen for looking over the basic plot outline.


	4. The Battle of Fielding

**The Battle of Fielding**

_Ding dong!_ "Gage, could you get that?" Michael Harris exclaimed from the kitchen as he taste-tested a bowl of leek soup.

"Yeah!" Gage flew down the stairs from his bedroom and said "Who is it?" loudly, his hand hovering above the doorknob.

"It's us," he heard Michelle Smith say.

He eagerly opened the door to find the ASPS, as well as a new addition. "What's she doing here?" he asked, pointing to Roan Breckenridge, who wrinkled her nose at him. Then, Gage noticed their drawn expressions. "Is everything all right?" he asked, concerned.

Michelle blew a strand of hair out of her face. "Well, remember what I did to Dmitri last year?"

"Yeah?" said Gage, now nervous.

"Same thing in concept to Ethan. Minus the ass-beating part."

Gage exhaled, in both relief and mild frustration; he hated to see his friends be continually put through the wringer. "So it's over, then. Right?"

"Hope so," said Wehrung.

Karis sniffed the air. "Oh! Is that leek?"

"Um, yeah," Gage said. "But we weren't expecting company. I can ask my gramps if we can order pizza, though."

"I'll pay for it," Roan said.

Gage held up his hand at her. "No, it's okay-"

"It's fine," Roan interjected. She checked her wallet and found a twenty-dollar bill. "I don't want to impose." She smiled half-heartedly and rubbed her stomach. "And I haven't had pizza in a while anyways."

"Mmmm, pepperoni…" Wehrung salivated while licking his lips.

The group walked inside and took seats at the dinner table. Roan remained outside for a minute as she called Pizza King. "I'll be watching TV," Michael said as he headed upstairs with his bowl of soup.

"Okay," Gage replied. When his adopted grandfather was out of earshot, he asked, "So what exactly happened with Ethan?"

The four quickly explained it to him. "Is this Viper thing over then?" Gage asked.

"Christ, hope so," Karis said. "Otherwise I'm taking the next plane back to England." She was half-serious; she hated the idea of reuniting with her parents, but the constant drama of Fielding was wearing on her.

"Well, we can always kick Ethan's ass if he steps out of line-" Roan started.

Michelle noisily slammed the butt of her cane against the table. "We?" she said sharply. "No. You're not an ASP, Roan. I'm grateful for all your help, but Ethan was our...is our..." she struggled to say 'friend.' "Ugh. Bottom line, it's not your decision." The camera lens strapped to her head that served as her eye met Roan's own shiny blue ones. "Capiche?"

Roan was caught off guard by the steel in her tone, but it reminded her that Michelle Smith was never to be trifled with; the memory of being struck in the back with Michelle's old cane still smarted. "Okay," she said, almost meekly.

Stroking his thin beard, Wehrung said, "Now, we just have to figure out what that audio recording he made was for."

"What audio recording?" Gage asked.

They suddenly heard Michael calling from upstairs: "Guys! C'mup here, you wanna see this!"

Curious and confused, the group ascended the staircase, ignoring Wehrung's worried complaints about if anyone was going to be able to hear whether or not the pizza had arrived. The stench of the staircase's decaying woodwork hit Roan's nostrils like a hammer and she said, "Jeez, you guys live like this?"

Gage shot her a filthy look.

She swallowed. "Sorry, I didn't mean...you know, I can put you in touch with a church related to mine; they do charity renovations every few years, and they've been looking for a new project."

He shrugged his shoulders at her while putting her suggestion at the back of his mind.

The five of them entered Michael's room, where Michael lay on his bed, propped up on pillows. An outdated television sat on a dresser across from him, sputtering and frizzing.

"It's the news," Michael said. "Apparently, Carter Falwell just lost the confidence of a local congressman. Boy, _that _has to be humiliating….what?" he asked, confused at the looks of surprise and amazement on all their faces. Gage, though, was just as befuddled as he was.

It was a WBALTV report. Onscreen, the reporter, a man with hair on the cusp of turning gray, was holding a microphone, standing on the outskirts of Fielding's campus, and gesturing needlessly to it every few words. "-Blofeld has voiced his distrust for Headmaster Carter Falwell, who took on Fielding's administrative duties following the departure of Henry Michaelas. Again, Mr. Blofeld has been reported as saying that Carter Falwell will have to leave his post if he mishandles a voucher project. No word yet on what this project entails, but considering Mr. Blofeld's advocation of school vouchers, we can only guess that the two are collaborating on something. Back to you, Leandra."

The program transitioned to a report on gun violence in uptown Baltimore.

"Well, now we know what he did with the recording," Wehrung said.

_"What _recording?" Gage asked.

"Ethan somehow got an audio file of-" Michelle started, when Karis butted in.

"Um, guys?" she said hesitantly. "Roan just left." A quick look behind them confirmed it. "She ran out," Karis added.

"Ran?" Wehrung scurried into his and Gage's room and looked out the window to the front lawn, just in time to see Roan bolt past the rather disgruntled-looking pizza delivery girl and take off down the street, back towards Fielding. He wondered, _What's her deal? _and simultaneously observed "That was fast," as he watched the flustered pizza girl walk up the driveway.

XXXX

Meanwhile, as Roan made a beeline for Fielding, Carter Falwell was sitting in his office in a polo shirt and jeans, watching the WBAL report on a portable TV sitting on his desk with wide eyes. _Bound to screw up? Fire me? _What the hell was Blofeld talking about? As he wracked his brain, trying to figure out why something like this was happening, his secretary Peggy poked her head in. "Um, sir? You have a call. It's the congressman."

Feeling a hot sensation in his chest, Falwell said gruffly, "Thank you, darlin'." _Now I'll get some goddamn answers. _He took a deep breath and picked up the receiver. "James," he said without any warmth.

"Mr. Falwell. I assume you saw the report."

"I did. May I ask what was the meaning of that soundbite?"

"Believe me, Headmaster, I was confused as you are. I was absolutely sure that I had never said anything along those lines in my entire life, but then I recalled an interview I'd done with a boy on your campus about a week ago. I think he edited what I said and turned it into what you heard. I have no idea why he'd send that to the news. I'm sorry, Mr. Falwell."

"Ah. Well, honestly, I was mostly confused on how you expected to have me fired."

There was a pause over the line for a moment. "The governors," said Blofeld honestly.

Falwell frowned. "Pardon?"

"I am using the governors."

"What do you mean?" Falwell asked.

He heard an exasperated sigh over the other line. "I am using the governors to get rid of you, Carter."

"Get rid of me?" Falwell shouted, "Wait, have you been trying to have me fired all along?!"

"I had no such machinations," Blofeld said calmly. "I do now, however."

"I beg your pardon?!" Falwell had to restrain himself from roaring into the receiver.

"You're out, Falwell," said Blofeld bluntly. "This audio file may be edited, but nobody has been able to figure that out yet. If I try to tell the media that, they'll think I'm trying to avoid controversy, which will create controversy itself. So what I said has to be true."

Falwell could scarcely believe it; it all sounded so ridiculous. "Are you f*cking kidding me, Blofeld? You're going to try and kick me out over a child's prank?!"

"This child's _prank_ made headlines outside of the state, Falwell. I can't risk looking like a fool. It's my job or yours."

"And how," said Falwell, whose knuckles were turning white from gripping the arm-rests of his chair so tightly, "do you plan on firing me? You're not a governor. You have absolutely zero influence-"

"Ah, now see, that's where you're wrong." Falwell swore that Blofeld sounded _gleeful. _ "I've been in contact with the governors lately. Just got off a conference call with them, in fact. And they're very keen on Fielding receiving the donations you and I talked about."

Falwell suddenly felt very, very cold.

"They have unanimously decided," Blofeld continued, "that it would be best if you were to go. Besides, they've been unhappy that Fielding's gone down several places on _Time's _100 Best Private Schools in the U.S. list under your administration, as well as all the money you've been funneling into those ridiculous security assets of yours."

"You son of a bitch!"

"Considering the grenade I just set on your desk, I'll let that slide. You have until tomorrow morning to clear out your desk and go. Same for your personal goons."

_Tomorrow. April 7. Wait, why is that date familiar…_ Falwell barked into the phone, "You'll have to drag me out by my cold, dead hands, you fat-faced bag of skin!"

"That's uncalled for, Mr. Falwell. And if you don't remove yourself from the building...well, I'm sure you know what the governors will do. And now if you'll excuse me, I have a meeting to attend."

"Don't you dare hang up on me, you goddamn-"

_Click. _The line was dead. Carter Falwell, now ex-Headmaster of Fielding Preparatory Academy, screamed at the top of his lungs in a red fury and kicked a huge hole in his desk.

XXXX

Roan Breckenridge had gotten her first taste of politics when she was in the seventh-grade, when she was part of the Fielding Underclassman Council. The experience had drained her; she had seen enough backstabbing, betrayals, and machinations to last a lifetime. But it had also taught her the art of manipulation. It taught her to be discreet. Efficient. Ruthless. To notice things that others might not. That was why Dmitri Vagin had personally recruited her as the Mafia's first female member in its history, after he had seen her utilize those skills firsthand, back in what her adopted parents called her "troubled" days.

So when she heard Ethan's recording on the television, she immediately figured out what he meant to do, and she knew that it was probably going to work. He had to pay for it. Roan wasn't sure why she was so angry; it might have been because she was tired of someone smarter than her manipulating events, or because she still held on to the hopeless belief that she would be the one to reform Fielding. Whatever the case, she just knew that she had to put her shoe up Ethan Dressler's bunghole.

It was late at night by the time that she got to Ransom-Howard. This time, there were no guards outside Ethan's door, which she forcefully kicked open. She turned on the lights to find the room empty and cold; the only sound came from a beeping telephone receiver that hung limply over the side of Ethan's desk. "Dammit," Roan cursed. For a moment, she considered hiding in the closet and waiting for the prick to return, but her rage gradually subsided as she stood panting in the empty dorm room. Roan realized that beating Ethan to a pulp, while blissfully cathartic in her head, wouldn't do her any good at this point. She let out a frustrated groan before walking off, not bothering to close the door. She headed back to her own room, shut the door, flung herself onto her bed, and let sleep take her.

XXXX

"You think Bitchmas isn't going to happen?" asked Cheryl Chalmers to her two Blair roommates, Andrea Crane and Deanna Granger. The idea had been in the back of her head for a while, and she was hoping against hope it wouldn't occur tomorrow.

Andrea, the more analytical one, shrugged. "Who knows. It's practically tradition, a Pavlovian instinct for the Neanderthals amongst the male population here. Assuming Falwell is aware of the tradition, which I'm sure he must be by now, then I'm sure that he's briefed the CSOs about it. But that's my take. Deanna?"

Their ever-optimistic South-African roommate was in a jolly mood, and that was reflected in what she said: "Eh, don't worry about it! I'm sure it'll all work out fine!"

"Don't jinx it, Dee," Cheryl said with a yawn as she tucked herself into bed.

XXXX

As Chandler Mackiewicz toweled himself off after a shower in the second-floor bathroom of Underhill, he asked his friend Roman, who was brushing his teeth, "You think Bitchmas is going to happen?"

Roman spat into the sink. "Christ, I hope so," he squeaked; Roman had earned the nickname "Castrati" for his boyish voice. "No broad in the school's been willing to go out with me the whole year. It'd be some sweet payback. But I don't want to get man-handled by a CSO."

"Yeah, that'd suck. Hate those assholes," said Chandler.

After gurgling, Roman shrugged and said, "Eh, there's always next year."

XXXX

The next day, a Saturday, Michelle Smith woke up very early in the morning to go out for a run. She'd never been able to do so before, at least not until Wehrung had crafted her 'eye' for her. It had always been something she'd wanted to try. So she put on some running shorts and shoes, a blue shirt that read _Starfleet Graduate _on it, and jogged off from Fielding towards Dega Street.

It was an..._interesting _experience, to say the least. The 'eye' strapped to her head wouldn't stop bouncing, so Michelle had to tighten it to the point that she could swear her skull was starting to crack, and she had to hold the battery in her right hand so it wouldn't disconnect from the 'eye.' But the feeling of freedom that she'd been craving for so long was starting to set in. It felt so amazing that she was able to ignore the pain of her strained lungs. At one point, Michelle passed Jane Lane coming from the other direction. They smiled and waved to each other briefly before continuing on their ways.

After a mile-long jog, Michelle stumbled into a park and collapsed on a bed of cool, moist grass and stared up at the sky. Fielding didn't exist. Nor did the ASPS. She wasn't blind. She was just Michelle Smith, lying in a park and watching the sky turn pink.

XXXX

The previous night, Carter Falwell had sent his entire force of privately-funded campus-security-officers e-mails that they would no longer need to come in for work, but assured them that they would receive severance. He could afford it. But he swore to himself that he'd never invest a single penny in Fielding ever again.

He finished packing his things into a cardboard box and left his office for good, and, seeing that nobody was around, Falwell went inside one last time. He unzipped his fly and peed on the Oval Office-style crest inlaid into the carpeting. Then he left his office for the last time, violently slamming the door on his way out.

XXXX

Michelle's bliss was interrupted by the loud whine of an engine. Lifting her head up, she saw a Harley-Davidson motorcycle slow down and park on the street across from her. The leather-clad rider dismounted and made her way towards her. Michelle tensed up and leapt to her feet, at which point she heard a laugh come from underneath the biker's helmet. They took it off. "Sorry to freak you out," Roan said. Pale blond hair flailed as she shook her head about. "Didn't know it was you. Just wanted to make sure you weren't dead."

"Whew," Michelle said, laughing in relief, "thought you were gonna rob me or something." She looked past Roan at the bike. "Holy crap, you ride _that?"_

Roan grinned. "Present for my 18th birthday. Thing's powerful. Wanna take a ride?"

Michelle politely held up a hand. "I'll pass. Whatcha doing down here, anyhow?"

"Was buying some new ink cartridges for my printer. You?"

"Just out running. Never gotten to do that before."

"Felt good?"

"Felt great! Loved it. Although I could have done without the buildup I felt in my chest...what do you call it?"

"Lactic acid?" Roan suggested.

"Yeah, lactic acid. Tastes like tuna."

"Ick."

"Major ick."

Roan looked at her watch. "Hm. Hey, Aggie's Cafe just opened up. Wanna come with?"

"Hm." Michelle gave Roan a playfully-scrutinizing look while tapping a finger to her chin. "Do they have hot chocolate?"

"Uh huh."

Grinning, Michelle said, "Hell yeah."

XXXX

The first thing that Jonathan Fahrner and Patrick Jarmel, seniors, best friends, and lax bros, noticed when they were outside was:

One: there were a few girls walking around.

Two: there were no CSOs in sight.

Then, a third realization hit them and hundreds of other male Fielding students like a truck: today was Bitchmas.

Patrick and Jonathan looked at each other, grinned, and started walking to a pair of freshman girls across the quad.

XXXX

Michelle and Roan walked down the street together, having one of their first casual conversations in a long time. Michelle could hardly believe it had been almost a year since she'd threatened to beat Roan to a pulp for threatening Karis. Roan, meanwhile, pondered telling Michelle she'd gone to Ethan's room last night and found that he was gone, but then she recalled Michelle's stern warning to her that same evening and decided against it.

They reached Aggie's, a snug coffee shop three buildings down from Axl's Piercing Parlor. Once they had settled down with their drinks in a cushioned booth, Michelle sipping from a cup of hot chocolate and Roan gulping down a coffee, Michelle said, "So, you're gonna be graduating soon."

"Uh huh," Roan said in between sips.

"You decided on a college yet?"

"Berkeley," Roan answered. "Gonna major in political science."

Michelle nodded in approval. "Good choice. You sad to be leaving Fielding?"

Roan shrugged. "Not particularly. I mean, I am bummed that I won't be able to see a bunch of my other friends anymore-"

"You have other friends?" Michelle asked, half-seriously and half-jokingly.

"Um, yeah," Roan said, giving her a quizzical look, "a bunch. What, just because you haven't seen them, they don't exist?"

"Eyup," Michelle said with a chuckle.

Roan huffed. "With that logic, without that camera strapped to your face nothing exists."

"Touché." Michelle took another sip of her hot chocolate.

"What about you?" Roan asked. "What're your plans for the future?"

"Lit major, hopefully," said Michelle. "And that's because I like reading," she added in a firm tone; whenever she told anyone that, they automatically assumed it was because it was the only major that she could take, on account of her blindness.

"I don't doubt it," Roan reassured her. "Are _you _sad you're gonna be leaving Fielding?"

"Pft, no," Michelle said as if it were obvious.

"Mm. Mind if I ask you something?" Roan asked.

"Shoot."

"If you hate Fielding so much, why didn't you just stay at Perkins after the whole thing with the Mafia?"

Michelle paused for a moment before, to Roan's shock, she downed her entire mug of hot chocolate like an alcoholic would down a whole bottle of gin. Loudly exhaling, Michelle said, "Believe me, I considered it. Being back home with my family and my middle-school friends was great, for a while. But you know, people change. Some of the people I knew way back when were a lot different, and I just couldn't relate to them anymore. Not only that, but I had gone to one of the most prestigious schools in the country. I took down an entire secret society. I was sighted, at least for a short while. And I am again now, to a slight degree. Believe me, I tried making a fresh start back in Mass." She pulled on her dyed-black hair as she said that. "But I missed Wehrung, Gage, and Karis a lot. I even missed Ethan; I used to talk to his sister and his girlfriend sometimes-"

"Dressler has a girlfriend?" Roan said in slight horror.

"Had. They broke up."

"Phew. Oh, sorry, go on."

"I'd check on how he was doing. I'd call the ASPS, and that made me miss them even more. They were my closest friends. I knew that going back to Fielding would probably stress me out to no end, but I...I needed to feel like I belonged again. Do you know what I'm talking about?"

Roan bit her lip. "Maybe." She considered telling Michelle about the years she had spent on the streets, and how sometimes she had yearned for that twisted sense of independence she had felt before she'd been adopted, but that wasn't something she felt completely comfortable divulging. At least, not yet.

"Well, I wanted to come back because I wanted to live some semblance of a normal life again, and have my friends around me," Michelle said. She snorted ruefully. "Then Ethan came back. That's irony for you."

Roan put a hand on Michelle's shoulder. Michelle frowned. "Uh, what're you doing?"

"Um, being reassuring?" Roan said uncertainly.

"Oh. Okay." Michelle shrugged. "Reassure me, then."

Before Roan could open her mouth, Michelle felt a buzzing in her pocket. She held up her index finger and said, "Hold on." Roan withdrew her hand, and Michelle took out her cell phone and flipped it open. "Hello?"

"Michelle?!" yelled a voice so loud that Michelle had to move the phone away from her ear for a moment.

"Wehrung? What's wrong?" He sounded out-of-breath and frantic.

"I just got a call from Zara! Bitchmas is in full swing! Fielding's turned into a goddamn war zone!"

"What?!" Michelle exclaimed, shooting to her feet. Roan immediately tensed. "But, the CSOs-"

"Jesus Christ," Roan breathed, realizing what was going on.

"They freaking vanished into thin air!" Wehrung said. "I called 911, but they thought I was prank-calling them! I'm heading to Blair!"

"We'll come get you!" Michelle said.

"We? Who're you with?"

"Roan."

"Are you guys near her bike?"

_He knew about her bike? _"Yeah!" said Michelle. "Where are you?"

"A block down from Harris Studios."

Michelle bit her lip. "Crap, you're too far..." She swallowed. "We'll go get Karis and Zara."

"What? You can't! Fielding's gone full Mad Max!"

"Who do you think you're talking to?" Michelle said, trying to project confidence, even though she felt deathly afraid of what faced them back at Fielding. "We'll get Karis, Zara, and the rest of them all out fine."

There was a momentary silence over the line before Wehrung exclaimed desperately, "Please Michelle, make sure my sister's okay!"

"Don't worry! We'll see you there!" Michelle pocketed the phone and looked at Roan. "He said Bitchmas-"

"I guessed. C'mon!" They ran out and made a beeline for Roan's Harley. Roan jumped on and gave Michelle her helmet, which she quickly put on before they shot down the street, tires screaming against asphalt.

"Where are we supposed to go once we've gotten Karis and Zara?" Michelle yelled above the roar of the bike's engine.

"Warville!" Roan answered. "The boy-geniuses turn the dorm into a fort every year and let in anyone who wants shelter. Then they shoot any pursuers with paintball guns when they get close. They think it's fun. I just hope to God that they'll be able to set something up in time whenhave set something up when we get there. "

"Okay, Warville it is," said Michelle. She could already feel adrenaline pumping through her. _And the fight goes on, _she thought.

XXXX

They arrived just outside the Fielding Chapel. As they dismounted, they surveyed the carnage.

Michelle had never seen Bitchmas, but she'd heard about the disgusting things that it entailed from her classmates. Roan, however, had seen three. And both of them were still shocked to see anything on this scale. Male students were throwing rocks through the windows of the girls' dorms, trying to tear the clothes off of any girl in sight, screaming like maniacs, spray-painting the walls; the result of almost an entire year's worth of suppressed urges being released at once. Chaos reigned.

"It's a flipping riot," Roan breathed in disbelief. "This is bad. This is very very bad."

When Michelle felt an arm quickly moving around the right side of her waist, she instinctively swung her cane around, resulting in a satisfying THWACK. A bespectacled tenth-grader screeched and ran away, clutching his nose. "Bad for us gals or them boys?" She smirked.

"No time for jokes," said Roan. She cast a worried gaze at Michelle. "Let's just get to Blair and get Karis out of there."

Michelle's cocky smile faded, and she nodded in agreement. "Right."

They jogged across the lot, maneuvering around other boys stirred up by the atmosphere of punishment-free harassment. At one point, Michelle saw a boy she'd sworn she'd seen before grabbing at a screaming girl's hair…after a moment, she realized that it was one of the Vipers that had watched her humiliate Ethan. _Your plans have turned to shit after all, Ethan, _she thought.

Soon, they had gotten to Blair, which was practically surrounded by both lacrosse brothers and normal male students. "Hey, come on out, bitches!" shouted a shirtless lax bro. "Just wanna have some fun! What, you chicken-shit or something?" He tossed some beer bottles up at a window with a friend, while several of his brethren pounded on the door to the Blair dormitory.

Michelle Smith and Roan Breckenridge angrily stalked up to them. Michelle tucked the battery of her 'eye' into her jacket pocket and gripped her plastic cane so tightly in her hand her knuckles turned white. "You ready?" she asked.

Roan cracked her neck. "More than."

"Then let's do this." She called to the nearest lax bro, the one who had been catcalling. "Hey! Asshole!"

As soon as he turned around, Michelle punched him so hard in the face that he crumpled to the ground instantly. Roan didn't even have to touch the other one; she merely had to draw her Swiss Army knife and scream. He fled at the sight of the glaring blade.

CRASH! Michelle and Roan turned to the sound of a dozen lax bros breaking down the door of the dorm and rushing inside.

"Jesus Christ!" Michelle exclaimed. "This is insane!"

"We have to get them all out, come on!"

They had barely stepped through the door when a few lax bros ran past them back outside, screaming and clutching their faces. Roan looked up ahead and saw Georgina Weathers, Pauline Driver, Zara Wehrung, and Alexis Bullworth spraying the boys with squirt guns. When the liquid splashed against a wall, causing it to smoke, Roan realized the guns were loaded with some kind of acid.

"Go away, stupid boys!" Pauline shouted as she continued to spray the lax bros. One of them stepped towards her and, in one fluid motion, snatched her gun away and elbowed her in the face. He received a faceful of weak acid from Alexis and ran off screeching.

By now, there were only a few lax bros left. Michelle bodily threw one to the ground and Roan kicked another in the knees, bringing him down. "Leave if you want to keep your genitalia," she hissed to the leftovers. They quickly fled.

As Michelle retracted her cane and hid it back inside her jacket, she turned to Pauline. "Are you okay?"

Gritting her teeth and clutching her eye, Pauline shook her head. Georgina quickly knelt beside her, muttering half-hearted reassurances and lies of upcoming aid.

"Was that the door I heard making that crashing sound?" Zara asked.

Roan nodded. "We need to get you all out of here."

"We're prepared," Alexis said confidently. "We have traps, and we have the water guns."

"And they have numbers," Roan replied. "And soon, they'll be back. And with the doors down and with what's going on out there, I'd feel a lot better if you came with us."

The girls looked unsure. "To where?" inquired Zara.

"Warville," Michelle said. "The geniuses have set up the place like a fort." _I hope they do._ "We can take you all there."

"What about the other girls' dorms?" Alexis asked.

"We'll see what we can do later," Roan said. "You were our first stop, because," and she turned her head to Zara, "your brother is worried about you, and we want to get Karis." She flinched at the sound of a brick smashing through a window, followed by a scream. "Let's just get everyone out quick, all right? Zara, Alexis, you two and I should run through the floors, telling everyone to meet down here to head to Warville."

"I'll stand guard outside," Michelle said, gripping her plastic white cane tightly in her hand.

In a few minutes, the inhabitants of Blair began to file out. A minute into the evacuation, Zara weaved her way through the crowd and stepped up to Michelle. Her face no longer emanated confidence, but fear. "Where's my brother?" she asked.

"He's coming as fast as he can," Michelle said. "Now go."

Zara nodded, took a deep breath, and ran out with the other girls, spraying any boys who got too close to them with her water gun.

Michelle's heart beat faster and faster as more and more girls ran out. At one point, she thought she saw Karis, but she couldn't be sure. Eventually, the line ended and Roan came out, panting. "That's all of them," she said. "Let's go."

Warville wasn't far, but the run felt like a mile. More and more laughing, pent-up young men made their way towards the rear end of the column, following them. But when most of them realized they were heading to Warville, they retreated, fearful of a paintball hitting a sensitive area.

Some weren't deterred; Michelle looked back and felt her heart drop as no less than ten boys came charging full-speed at the group of Blair girls. _Oh, wonderful. _She looked back at the crowd of Blair girls trying to run away, and knew that they would be quickly overrun; they weren't fast enough. "Roan!"

When the short-haired senior looked back at her, Michelle yelled, "Keep them safe!"

Roan saw the charging pack of boys, and her eyes widened. Her face turned as white as her hair, but she nodded and urged the Blair girls to run faster.

Planting her feet firmly into the ground, Michelle turned around and cracked her knuckles. The ten boys quickly surrounded her.

"We're gonna beat you up, you blind bitch," said one gap-toothed boy who could not have been older than twelve. The other boys looked equally eager.

Michelle cracked her neck, shrugged, and in one movement launched her retractable cane out from her sleeve and into her hand, fully extended. She grinned at him. "Doubtful. Bitch."

The first one ran at her from behind. Michelle twirled around with the grace of a ballerina and brought her cane down on the back of his neck while sticking her foot in front of his own. He easily went down, but he distracted her from a punch to her kidneys. She screamed in pain. "Damn it!"

"Ha!" squeaked her attacker shouted in triumph. He prepared for another shot at the same spot, but Michelle was too quick. She immediately whipped around, sidestepped the punch, and delivered a quick blow to his groin, which took him out immediately.

"Ha to you, asshole!" she said. The eight other boys looked fearful for a moment, concerned for the safety of their own genitalia. For that moment, Michelle was confident that she would either beat them all, or at least scare them all away.

That was until the largest boy screamed, "Screw this, rush her!" And all eight charged at once, screaming, fists raised, leaping over the two she had already taken down.

Panic welled up inside Michelle; there was no way she could take them all. _I need to get to Warville; I must have bought enough time by now. _She gripped her cane with both hands and swung it in a single, powerful arc at the heads of the assembled boys. Plastic connected with skull, but then someone grabbed hold of her cane and used it to pull her towards him. Michelle let it go and did a sweeping kick, tripping a few boys, but one came behind her and grabbed her arms. She struggled against his powerful frame, lashing out with her legs at approaching attackers. Michelle brought her foot down onto the toes of the young man holding her with all her might. He screamed and let her go.

She fought as hard as she could. Weaving, ducking, side-stepping, Michelle was almost like a dancer, gracefully dancing as she evaded their blows, while delivering a few of her own: power-kicks, uppercuts, jabs. Having been trained in close-quarters-combat since elementary school, she was more than prepared.

But you can only go so far when you can barely see with a single eye. From the right, a quick punch connected with Michelle's 'eye.' She screamed as her vision went dark, as the straps pulled at her head and made her stumble forward. Throwing her hands in front of her broke her fall, but she felt a kick to her side, and another kick, and another. She couldn't get back up. As the blows continued to come down upon her, Michelle thought, _Oh my god. I think they're going to kill me. _

A rough kick to the back of her head only confirmed her fears. At this point, she only had one last mode of defense. "HELP!" Michelle screamed at the top of her lungs.

"Nobody can hear you, bitch!"

She couldn't see, her head was swimming and pounding, every part of her hurt, and she was alone in a cesspool of hatred and irresponsibility that had transformed her school into a literal hell. A part of her told her to give up; another told her to get up. _How can I do either? _she thought. Michelle waited for something to happen. Anything to relieve her from this.

"Get away from her."

Michelle had known him for two years, yet she'd never thought Ethan Dressler's voice could sound so terrible. He spoke with such a combination of ice and venom in his voice that he sounded like hate incarnate.

"Piss off, Dressler! We don't follow you anymore!" snarled a former Viper.

There was the familiar sound of a paintball colliding with human flesh, followed by a scream. "This is your last warning," Ethan snarled. "Get. Away. From. Her."

"Or what?" She felt someone step on her side as he made his way towards Ethan.

"Or I will kill you." The tone of his voice indicated that he wasn't bluffing..

"Oh yeah?" The disbelieving former Viper walked towards him, laughing. "I bet. Whaddya gonna do to me, you pansy-ass-"

There was some kind of heavy, wheezing noise, followed by the most blood-curdling scream Michelle had ever heard.

"Holy shit!" one of her attackers shrieked.

"Split! Everyone split!"

She heard multiple pairs of feet running off at once. Grunting painfully, Michelle tried to stand back up, but a wave of what felt like sleepiness overtook her and she felt herself fall back onto the pavement. As her head swam, she heard another set of feet approach her. "Michelle," said an anxious Ethan, "I'm going to pick you up now. All right?" She felt him struggle to scoop her up.

"Okay," she replied in the faintest of whispers before fading into the dark, going completely slack in Ethan's thin arms.

-With thanks to Kristen Bealer for beta-reading!


	5. Noise and Violence

A paintball is capable of delivering around 4,500,000 Newtons of force. It only takes 3,360,000 to cause a concussion, so the Warville snipers were very careful to not make any headshots. They weren't particularly fond of the idea of potentially being held liable for someone's death.

"All around the hallowed halls, the lax-hole chased the girlie, the lax-hole thought it was all in fun, pop!" Cormac Callaghan sang as he squeezed the hair trigger on his paintball gun, hitting Clarence White square in the back and sending him crashing to the ground, allowing a ninth-grade girl to escape his grasp. "Goes the...aw, man! I messed up the rhyme."

"Well, it was nice shot nonetheless," said Lucien Reyer as he finished reloading his own gun. The two had taken position on the roof of Warville, sniping at anyone they thought was going to commit at least some form of mischief. Every so often, a group of girls would head inside their dorm, and they'd pick off pursuers. It was proving to be quite entertaining.

Cormac checked his scope and saw an interesting sight. "Lucien, herd at three o'clock."

"Oh?" Lucien peered through his own 12X sight and saw a large group of girls running in their direction, at least fifty meters away. To his surprise, they had relatively few pursuers. Just as he was about to take a shot at a mean-looking senior, a girl with white hair-he realized it was Roan Breckenridge-got to him first. Grabbing him by the arm, she applied a technique taught to her by Julian Townes, which he called "The Ulnamator." The senior screamed before the snap.

Cormac looked away. "Christ. _That_ will send anyone to therapy."

The rest of their pursuers ran off after that, to the pair's disappointment.

Below, Roan ushered all the Blair girls up the stairs of Warville. Karis ran past, pointed behind her, and said, "Alex." Roan turned and saw Wehrung running towards them, looking very out of breath.

Roan shouted, "Zara! Where are you?"

"Here!" She bounded out from the crowd up to Roan. "What-" she saw her brother, who enveloped her in a hug before she could react.

"Thank god," he breathed. "You're okay."

"Uh huh," she said, hugging him back. "I'm good."

He picked up his head and looked at Roan. "Where's Michelle and Karis?"

"Karis is inside. Michelle was holding off a bunch of guys…Christ, we have to go back for her."

Wide-eyed, Wehrung nodded. "Hold on," he said. He ran inside Warville, returning momentarily with a paintball gun. He tore off his eyepatch and said, "Let's go." He followed Roan while Zara joined her friends inside the dorm-turned-fort.

Gradually, the screams and jeers were overtaken by sirens. All across campus, police cars and ambulances were driving onto campus, looking to arrest anyone misbehaving and treat those who were hurt.

"It's about goddamn time!" Wehrung roared angrily at a passing police vehicle.

Roan looked at him. "Drop that."

"Drop wha…" He followed her gaze down to his paintball gun. "Oh." It fell to the grass with a clunk.

Eventually, Roan stopped in front of several unconscious young men and looked around wildly.

"Well? Where do we go now?" Wehrung asked urgently. "Where, Roan?!"

"She..she was here before. Sh*t. Where'd she go? Sh*t!"

They both looked around, until Wehrung spotted a familiar, towering figure clad all in black carrying someone. "There," he pointed. They ran off to catch up with Ethan.

As they got closer, they could tell something was seriously wrong. Michelle was completely limp, and her dyed-black hair was matted with blood. When Ethan heard Wehrung gasp, he turned to face them. "Well, don't just gawk!" he exclaimed, obviously straining to carry her. Two small rivulets of blood ran down both sides of his mouth. Up ahead, an ambulance pulled up. Roan took Michelle by the shoulders and Wehrung got her by the feet, while Ethan held her up by her back.

"What happened, Dressler?" Roan asked urgently.

"She went down fighting," he grunted. "And as you probably saw, she took a few with her."

As soon as Michelle was unloaded into an awaiting hospital van and nearby paramedic turned her back, Wehrung punched Ethan hard in the nose. He angrily stalked off with a disgusted look on his face, leaving Ethan to groan in pain. "I never took him for the violent type," he muttered to Roan. He tapped the paramedic on the shoulder. "May I come with?"

Her eyes widened at the sight of a steady stream of blood flowing out of his nose. "How did-"

"Doesn't matter," he cut her off. "May I come?"

She overcame her surprise and nodded her head. As Ethan stepped into the ambulance, so did Roan. He looked at her. "You don't have to-"

She shot him a piercing glare, as if to say_, I'll break another part of your face before I leave you alone with her._ Ethan kept silent as the ambulance doors closed. Soon enough, they were on their way to Lawndale General.

XXXX

"What the ever-living heck is going on over there?!" exclaimed a shocked Gage into his cell phone as he stared at Jane's TV. "It's all over the news! What on Earth happened? It's never been this bad before!"

"I think Ethan's plan worked," Wehrung said ruefully. "So Falwell and all of his goons must have just gotten the boot." He stood at a pay-phone by Warville, trying to ignore the screams of injured and about-to-be-incarcerated students. "Nobody knows where the regular FSO guys were."

"Are the girls okay?"

"Michelle single-handedly took on ten guys and lost. She's on her way to the hospital."

"Oh my god. Karis? Zara? Roan?"

"I'm here with Karis and Zara; they're okay. I don't know where Roan went; I last saw her with Ethan, and they were with Michelle. They probably went to the hospital."

"Which hospital?"

"I think Lawndale General."

"You _think_?" Gage said in exasperation.

"I'm pretty sure," Wehrung reassured him.

"I hope. Wehrung, what are you going to do?"

"I'm going to stay at Warville with my sister and Karis."

"Okay. I'm heading to Lawndale General right now. I have my cell phone."

"All right." Wehrung hung up and jogged back to Warville.

At Casa Lane, Gage made a dash for the counter to get his car keys, right as Jane returned from the bathroom. "What's wrong?" she said, noticing how pale and worried he looked.

"Michelle's in the hospital. I have to go and make sure she's okay. Could you come with me?"

Her mouth fell open in shock. "In the...I saw her this morning…"

"Jane?"

She shook her head. "Yeah, yeah. C'mon, let's go."

XXXX

_Make nice with your friends. They'll forgive you. Maybe not immediately, but eventually. They'll come around. Trust me, Ethan. It'll make your life a lot easier. Remember Gennaro._

Dylan's last words to Ethan played over and over in his head; it was the only thing he could hear. The sound of the ambulance's siren, the beeping of the machines keeping Michelle alive, and the paramedic questioning him and Roan all faded into a single track of white noise that he couldn't understand.  
_Remember Gennaro. Remember Gennaro. _

_You might have been right, Dylan, _Ethan thought. I_t's too late now, though. _He looked down at Michelle; her face was cut and scratched, her dyed-black hair matted with blood. _Please, god._He had never made anything close to a prayer before. _Don't let it be too late. _

Suddenly, his eyes were blinded by sunlight. Ethan raised a hand to shield his face before he felt himself being pulled out of the ambulance by his tie. As his vision cleared, he saw that Roan was leading him after the paramedics; they had parked outside of Lawndale General and were taking Michelle inside on a stretcher.

"I swear to god, Dressler," Roan said, letting go of his tie. "If she dies, I will do far worse to you than what those assholes did to her."

He could only nod meekly. It wasn't like there was anything he could say that would calm her down.

They followed the paramedics as they took Michelle in, but as soon as their friend was rushed through a set of sliding automatic doors, the doors locked and wouldn't let Roan and Ethan in. "Sh*t!" Roan spat. "Thanks for the warning, assh*les! Now what, Dressler? Dressler?" She looked around and nearly didn't see Ethan rush inside through the main doors. Roan ran after him and found him talking to the receptionist. He removed his wallet and showed her what, from where Roan was, looked like a business card. The receptionist looked at it, then at Ethan, and said something else to him. He nodded and took a seat at the far edge of the waiting room, looking defeated and angry.

Roan went up to him. "Well?"

He spoke quietly. "Michelle is in surgery. We'll be called when she's ready for visitors."

"If she dies-"

"You'll do far worse to me, Breckenridge. I haven't forgotten."

He sat in silence after stuffing a few tissues up his nose to stop his nosebleed while Roan leaned up against a wall. The sounds of moaning elderly and wailing children was grating. For the sake of providing herself with a distraction, Roan asked, "Where were you? I went to your room, and you weren't there."

Ethan looked up and frowned at her. "Why did you go to my room?"

"To beat the living crap out of you for booting out Falwell."

He leaned back, satisfied with the answer. "I see. I was out."

"Doing?"

"Walking. Contemplating."

"Contemplating what?"

He didn't quite know how to explain it, and even if he did, he'd be damned if he ever told it to the likes of Roan Breckenridge.

He was at his lowest low after what Michelle did to him in front of the Vipers. And then, completely out of the blue, Dylan called him. It was the first time they'd talked for a long while. She was far more cordial towards him than he thought she had any reason to be.

_How'd you get my...how'd you know I'd-_

Your sister told me that you came out of your coma and your brother gave me your number.

...why did you call?

I wanted to check up on you. How are you? You feeling okay?

Before he knew, he had spilled his guts to her.

_Oh. Uh, wow. You've been, um, busy…_

Yeah.

But are you doing okay?

...no. Not really.

Well, not sure if this will help, but here's my two cents...

He never talked back, asked any questions, defended himself as she spoke. The part that had stuck out most in his mind was:  
_Make nice with your friends. They'll forgive you. Maybe not immediately, but eventually. They'll come around. Trust me, Ethan. It'll make your life a lot easier. Remember Gennaro.  
_  
She had made him slowly, reluctantly, realize that the ASPS were too important for him to forsake for the sake of his own hurt feelings or ego. He'd walked in a near-trance through uptown, mulling over her words for another few hours, before finally deciding that apologizing to the ASPS would have been the best course of action.

If it weren't for the fact that Fielding devolved into a testosterone-fueled zoo, it would have taken Ethan another full month to work up the nerve to confront Michelle, Wehrung, Gage and Karis.

Roan took his silence as a slight. "You realize that it's your fault, right?" she said icily. "If you hadn't gotten rid of Falwell, none of this would have happened."

He knew she was right, but the fact that she was trying to make him feel even worse than he already felt made Ethan angry and defensive. "As long as we're laying the blame here," he said, "if the rest of you hadn't interfered, this wouldn't have happened either. The whole purpose of the Vipers was to maintain order during Bitchmas as the administration transitioned in the event that Falwell's personal force of security officers left with him around that time. So if the rest of you had just minded your own business-"

Roan shot to her feet. "You complete that sentence," she said, "and I'll break your jaw. And if you think I'm bluffing, just try me."

For a moment, Ethan was tempted to shoot to his feet too, so that he could stare down at her with any variety of terrible expressions. But instead, he felt the energy drain out of him, and he slumped in the chair. He wasn't sure if he was too exhausted to fight now, losing too much blood, or both. Whatever the case, he averted his gaze from Roan's and went back to hoping for Michelle's recovery.

A few minutes later, Gage arrived in the waiting room with Jane Lane following close behind him. He first looked at Ethan, as it had been the first time he'd seen him since he'd left so abruptly over a year ago. But he forced himself to divert his attention to Roan, who quickly and concisely explained what had happened and why. By the time she was done, Gage and Jane couldn't look at Ethan.

A further eight hours went by, during which time Jane had left at Gage's behest, not wanting her to have to lose any sleep. Ethan had fallen asleep himself after finally stopping his nosebleed, weak from blood loss. Roan had managed to keep herself attentive with several cups of coffee. Gage had called Wehrung and found that he was still at Warville with Karis and most of the Blair girls. The police had made even more arrests, and Carter Falwell was being eviscerated in the news.

Eventually, a doctor came out, asking for whoever had come with Michelle Smith. Roan slapped Ethan's shoulder to wake him up. "How is she?" Gage asked.

The doctor exhaled. "Well, there's good news and bad news."

"What's the bad news?" Ethan asked with dread, even though he knew that there being good news meant that Michelle was, at the very least, not dead. Yet.

"She's in a coma, and not a controlled one," said the doctor. "We don't know when she'll wake up, although we have reason to believe that it shouldn't be permanent. If she does awake, she should be able to function completely normally."

Ethan, Roan, and Gage didn't know whether to be relieved or dismayed. "So, how long could this coma theoretically last?" asked Gage.

"Could be three months, could be fifty years. There's no way to tell."

Their faces collectively fell. Ethan's eyes slowly tracked from the doctor to Roan and Gage, who still refused to look at him. They did when he said, "I'll call the Smiths."

Gage looked at him searchingly, as if to determine some unseen, ulterior motive. "You sure?" he asked.

"Yes," Ethan said somberly. "I wish I wasn't." He reluctantly walked off to find a telephone; he'd left his cell phone in his room at Fielding.

Roan turned back to the doctor. "Can we see her?"

He nodded and led them to Michelle's hospital room several floors up, and let them inside. Roan grit her teeth and Gage gasped. Michelle had been shaved bald, and there were several swaths of bandages around her head. There was a collar around her neck, and her face and arms were covered in stitches. Her face, however, was strangely calm, as if even though she was unconscious, she was satisfied for some unknown reason.

Turning to the doctor, Roan asked, "Can we, um, have a few minutes?"

"All right. I'll go tell your friend where to find you," the doctor said. He left.

The room was totally quiet apart from the occasional pinging noises coming from the machines that kept Michelle stable. Eventually, Gage spoke. "She was always the tough one," he reminisced. "She came up with some of our craftiest pranks; she never backed down when people got in her face. She was incredible."

"You're talking like she's dead," Roan said solemnly.

Gage exhaled loudly. "She might as well be. People rarely come out of comas."

"Dressler did."

"Ethan's….weird."

"Well, if a wimp like him can do it in, what, a month or two? Michelle Smith can do it three times faster."

That brought a ghost of a smile to Gage's face, but it didn't last long. "She doesn't deserve this."

Roan shook her head. "No. She doesn't. If it weren't for Dressler and his harebrained scheme-"

"He didn't do this to Michelle," Gage said. "Some slack-jawed Neanderthals did." He wondered what had happened to them. Ethan hadn't said.

"Maybe not," Roan replied, "but if it weren't for that sociopath's plan to make himself feel like he had big balls, this wouldn't have happened. And it's not just Michelle; god knows how many more people were hurt because Falwell's CSOs weren't there to protect them."

She didn't address the fact that Bitchmas was a long-standing tradition anyway, but Gage no longer had the energy to argue; he was tired, and every moment spent looking at Michelle's defeated form made him even angrier. At Ethan, and at Fielding.

The door creaked open, and Ethan walked in, looking worn. "The Smiths know," he said.

"How'd they take it?" Roan asked.

He narrowed his eyes at her. "They offered me Michelle's hand in marriage and cake as a bonus. How the hell do you _think_ they reacted, Breckenridge?" he snapped impatiently. "They're upset and they're coming out here immediately."

She curled her fists. "Don't you _dare_ give me that atti-"

"Oh, for Chrissake!" Ethan frustratedly exclaimed before lowering his voice to a hiss. He didn't dare say it out loud, but he was becoming increasingly angry at Roan for her hostility towards him, while he was already feeling a great deal of hatred for himself in the first place. "You're not my goddamn mother, Breckenridge, so stop acting like it. And if you want to punch me like you said, in a hospital with a floor named after my father, with security guards and a doctor right outside the door, then go ahead. I _dare_ you."

Roan glowered at him furiously, but kept still.

When Ethan took a look at Michelle, his shoulders sagged. "Well," he sighed sadly, "I suppose we should go."

Gage's mouth fell open. "That's it? _I suppose we should go_?"

"Yes."

"Are you kidding me!?"

"What do you want me to do, Gage? Mm? Say a prayer, call in a specialist from another country, bite her neck and turn her into a creature of the night? There's nothing we can do now, and staring at her won't help-"

Gage's fist connected with Ethan's jaw. It wasn't much of a blow, but it was enough to shock everyone present, including Gage, who quickly regained his composure and said, "You don't care, and it's your fault!"

"Of course I care! Do you think this is what I wanted-"

"I don't _care _what you wanted," Gage said in a trembling voice. He did not know if the tears falling down his cheeks were from bitterness or fury. Nevertheless, the frustration began to pour out. "For two years, two years, you made us part of all kinds of messed-up schemes, and for a while, we went along with it. I don't know why; I thought for a while it was just a quirk of yours-"

"You wanted a better Fielding-"

"_Shut up! _Just shut up." As Gage spat out the command, Roan hastily took her leave. Neither of them noticed. "This is not about me," Gage went on. "I made some big mistakes, yeah. But those mistakes were not even close, not by a million miles, to being in the same league as yours. I hope you have one heck of an apology in store, because if Michelle forgives you, then not only will hell freeze over, but we'll all be cured of Asperger's."

"And what exactly do you want me to apologize for?"

"For getting Michelle where she is now!"

"I'm not the one who did this to her!"

"But it wouldn't have happened if you just let your ego go for once!" Gage ran his hands through his hair in exasperated agitation. "You know, _I _was in a mental ward once. I never met anyone as awful as you."

Ethan's face contained a mixture of frustration and anger. "Are you done?"

Gage's jaw dropped. "Am I-"

"Oh good, you are. Then calm-" Ethan blocked the fist aimed at his face.

"You son of a bitch!" Gage hissed the curse sharply as he attempted to land yet another blow. When that was dodged too, he took a step back, but kept his gaze angrily fixed on Ethan and his fists balled. "I have had it up to here with you! You never had any consideration for us-"

"That is not true-"

"Shut up! You've never had any consideration for us. Everything you have done has been for the benefit of your ego! And now look where it's taken us! Are you happy now, you jerk? Are you happy?"

"Of course I'm not happy! Do you think I'd be happy after all this, Gage? Do you? I know this is my fault. I know I am the reason Michelle is lying here like this. And do you know what makes me feel even worse, on top of that? I saw Vipers participating in Bitchmas."

"Well of course you did! Did you honestly expect that just because you were leading them, they wouldn't do that?"

"I explicitly told them not to-"

"Your word is not law, Ethan! You'll be hard-pressed to find anyone who'd be willing to follow you no matter what."

"Well, I found you, didn't I?" Ethan cut Gage off before he could reply. "Don't think I've forgotten. You were alone, bullied, and had practically no drive other than your schoolwork. You were pretty much every other ordinary Fielding drone."

"Oh, don't give me that crap," Gage spat. "You inducted me into the ASPS because you thought I'd be able to advance the group's goals somehow."

Ethan resisted the urge to laugh. "Oh really? We already had me, muscle, and someone who could digitally steal any information we wanted. What ulterior motive could I possibly have had for you?"

If it weren't for the condescending way in which he was being spoken to, Gage might have conceded that point. "It doesn't matter," he replied sharply. "Bottom line, what happened to Michelle. Your fault. Stay away from her, me, Wehrung, Karis."

"Or what?" The words were out of Ethan's mouth before he could stop himself.

"Or nothing. Just stay away. You're just another Fielding a-hole."

The skin under Ethan's eye twitched at the slight, which indeed did hurt somewhat on an emotional level. "Well, I guess that makes you a friend of an a-hole."

"None of my friends are a-holes, Dressler."

It took a few moments for the words to sink in. They weren't exactly unexpected at that point, and he knew that they had been uttered in the heat of the moment, but they still were an even bigger punch in the face to Ethan. He knew he could spit an ever greater amount of venom back Gage's way, but that would only fuel the fire.

Ethan took a deep breath and straightened his tie. "If that's the way you feel then." He left the room, not bothering to acknowledge Roan, leaning up against the wall patiently, on his way out. She stared after her him, her eyes warning, _We're not done yet._

As Ethan stepped outside the hospital into the cool spring air, he wiped his eyes as the knowledge that he probably didn't have any friends anymore set in.  
It took him hours to walk back to Fielding; he'd left his wallet in his room, so he couldn't pay for a cab. By the time he got back to his dorm room in Ransom-Howard, he was so drained both physically and emotionally that he fell asleep before his face even made contact with his pillow.

XXXX

The next few days were chaotic. Once again, Fielding had earned the media's undivided attention for all the wrong reasons. Hundreds of students had been estimated to have been seriously injured, and both female and male students had even reported being raped. And this time, there were live video testimonies.

By the next morning, countless news agencies were reporting on Bitchmas, even internationally. And angry parents almost immediately put the Fielding governors on the spot for their failure to do anything about it. Carter Falwell later claimed ignorance of the event; he had heard of it before, but he'd completely forgotten when it was supposed to be happening. Henry Michaelas claimed that he'd tried to institute measures to prevent Bitchmas from happening again, but his predecessors had made it very difficult for him to do so. He didn't elaborate beyond that. Few believed him.

Many were wondering what was going to be done about it. And very few good suggestions were being made. Since so many blamed Carter Falwell, appointed by the governors, for what happened, nobody trusted them to make the decision as to who would replace him and repair the damage done.

It was on the third day that Karis Chapman, who was still staying in Warville due to the physical damage done to the Blair dormitories, knew that Fielding's fate would be in good, if ruthless hands. She was sitting in the library, listening to a French audiobook when an emaciated, pale young man walked in; Karis swore that all of Warville's residents looked that way.

"Chapman?" he asked.

"Oui," she said.

"We have CNN on in the rec room. Are you, by an off chance, related to a Peter Chapman, perhaps?"

Karis felt her heart leap fearfully into her throat, a natural reaction to hearing anything about her father at that point. "Yes," she said in a small voice.  
"Yes, well, he's making some rather intriguing statements on the television. I was ordered to let you know. Goodbye." And with that, he let her be, but he had to move aside as she shot down the hallway to see the TV.

All of Warville's residents and the other few Blair girls who had stayed following Bitchmas were watching the TV, where a man with hawk-like eyes and thinning grey hair with a few remaining strands of red still desperately hanging on was talking to Wolf Blitzer.

"...Lord Bowman has been a senior official on education here at Ten Downing for years," said Karis's father. His voice was low and his accent was strong to the point of seeming almost parodic. "He's managed three private schools, and he is probably one of the most efficient and competent people I have had the pleasure of working with."

"And what made you make the decision to send him to Fielding?" asked Blitzer.

"My daughter attends Fielding, and I want her to attend a premier school with students who are dedicated to their work and bettering themselves, instead of acting like undisciplined tripe."

"Well, that's all the time we have. Thank you, Mr. Chapman."

As CNN shifted to another story, Karis felt several pairs of eyes bore into her, and felt immediately grateful for her sunglasses not allowing her to return those gazes, because her eyes were wide with both surprise and anger. It was the first time she'd seen or heard her father ever since her parents had effectively exiled her to America. And now he was sending Lord Bowman here to clean up the mess. Why? Did he care about her? No, that was a stupid question. He never cared. Well, maybe he did. About his public image, perhaps. Or his investment for having sent her.

_Whatever. _It wasn't important. The man on the television hadn't changed her mind. And when he found out about her plan, he was going to have to accept it, whether he wanted to or not. Because Karis was done. Finally, without a doubt, done.

XXXX

A mere hour after Karis received the news, there was a knock at Ethan's door. The yellow-eyed ex-ASP hadn't left his room for a few days, except to get food and to use the bathroom. He had just been asleep and was still very upset over what Gage had said to him (his two calls to Wehrung had also gone unanswered), so he was in no mood for any sort of botherings. "F*ck off!" he shouted into his pillow. More knocking, louder. Ethan took his face off his pillow. "Are you deaf or an idiot? F*ck. Off!"

There was a gruff cough from the other side of the door. "Mr. Dressler? My name's William Palmstrom." His accent was very British. "I need to speak to you regarding events earlier today-"

Ethan switched tactics. "Yeah, well, can we speak after I'm done masturbating?"

That seemed to work; Palmstrom sounded irritated, and a little flustered. "I'll... just slip my contact info under the door here." Ethan saw a small slip of paper shoot from under his door and heard Palmstrom shuffle away. Resolving to throw the paper away later, he fell back into his pillow and tried to sleep. After a fruitless hour of trying to relax, Ethan rose, cursing and went to look at the piece of paper. It read:

_Attention student,_

You have been identified as a perpetrator/involved party in the events of April 7. As such, you are required to visit

_**William Palmstrom**__ at __**6:30 PM April 15**__ in __**MO113**__. Failure to attend this meeting will result in severe academic penalty. _

It was clear that Palmstrom's name and the time had been stamped into a blank space; Ethan deduced that there were more people fulfilling the same function, whatever the function was. Ethan was not aware of Lord Bowman's appointment as headmaster, and the fact that Fielding was now the subject of a massive crackdown to find and punish those who were involved in Bitchmas.

"Severe academic penalty…." Ethan thought out loud. That was usually code for 'expulsion.' Getting kicked out of Fielding...as the memory of watching a group of thugs trying to kill Michelle replayed in his head, he snorted and thought, _Fine by me._ He would survive without a Fielding 'education.'

The next day, as Ethan was packing his things, his cell phone rang. He flipped it open and said, "Hello?"

"What the f*ck did you do now?!"

The question had been practically shrieked into his ear. "Ow," he grunted. "Hello, Liz."

"I just answered a call from the school saying you have to go to some kind of questioning thing!" Elizabeth Dressler exclaimed loudly. "What did you do? Did you participate in Bitchmas?"

"No. Well, sort of-"

"Give me a straight answer, brother," she ordered impatiently.

"I'm not obligated to explain myself to you-"

"Tell me or I tell mom and dad."

He sighed, conceding defeat. "Fine. Michelle was being attacked, so I shot one of her assailants in the chest with a paintball gun and bit another on the cheek."

There was a pause. Elizabeth merely replied with, "Okay." She wasn't particularly surprised or shocked; her brother had done far worse than take a chunk out of someone's face before. "So, you're going to talk to this Palmstrom guy, right?"

"Well-"

"Brother." Her tone had turned stern. "If you get kicked out of Fielding, mom and dad will be really upset," she warned him.

"No. They'll be infuriated when they find out that I got expelled for assaulting two students," he corrected her. "I'm going to get expelled anyways, sister. What's the point?"

"Brother, please," she pleaded. "Just try?"

"But-"

"Ethan," she said sharply. "Do it."

"All right," he growled, annoyed. "Fine." He hung up the phone without saying goodbye.

Regarding the brutality he'd seen the other day, the idea of being expelled almost appealed to Ethan, but facing parents' wrath and disappointment did not. Neither did the prospect of returning to Saratoga High School, or public school in general for that matter. Ethan stuck a note on his cork-board reminding him to attend the appointment, which was tomorrow.

XXXX

"Yeah. No, I get it. Screw Fielding. Yeah, okay. I'm not sure how the Puff will take it. Okay. Love you mom. Bye." Wehrung hung up the rotary phone he and Gage had fixed for themselves. He turned to his roommate, who had been looking at him hopefully but by now had deduced what had been discussed over the phone call.

"You're leaving," Gage said.

Wehrung bowed his head and nodded. "Yeah."

"Because of-"

"Yeah. Mom doesn't want me and Zara coming here anymore." He looked up. "And to be honest Gage, I don't either. I've had it. I'm sorry."

"Don't apologize dude." Gage tapped a finger to the scar that ran down his face over his left eye, an ever-present memento he had received from Sue Bentley's admirers. "I totally get it."

Wehrung exhaled. "Jeez, Zara is going to totally flip. Guess I should call her."

"When do you have to go?"

"Mom says we can finish the end of the year, but she wants Zara to come and live over here until then. I don't know where we'd put her-"

"There's a spare mattress in the attic," Gage said.

"But it's a freaking furnace up there," Wehrung reminded him.

Gage wrinkled his nose at him, half-amused. "Didn't say she'd have to live up there. We'd just put her downstairs in the studio or something, where it's cool."

"That could work."

"Yup."

"I should call her."

"Good idea."

XXXX

Ethan showed up to the appointment in the Main Office squirming uncomfortably in the Fielding uniform, eager to get the affair over with as soon as possible. He approached the door which had a piece of paper taped to it that read "Disciplinary Investigator's Office." What a title, Ethan thought dryly. He entered without knocking, which caught Palmstrom by surprise, but his look of mild shock quickly turned to annoyance. "Sit down, Mr. Dressler," he snipped.

_He's from London,_ Ethan realized after hearing the accent again. He sat down in the chair and crossed his legs. _And there are no signs of communication accommodation, at least in his accent. So considering recent events, he's probably just arrived. Interesting, but that doesn't benefit me. _

Palmstrom coughed and opened up a drawer in the desk separating the two of them, from which he withdrew a pale blue folder, which he then set down on the desk. Ethan glanced at it, and Palmstrom pulled out a few papers. He quickly scanned them before looking back up at Ethan and said, "I have testimony that you participated in the event termed by the students as 'Bitchmas'."

"Clarify."

Nose twitching, Palmstrom said in a warning tone, "Can you be more clear please, Mr. Palmstrom?"

"I'm sure that you and I can agree that we'd both like to get this over with as soon as possible, Palmstrom. So please, clarify."

"You're right. I do want to get this over with, because the last thing I wanted to spend my day doing was having to deal with a disrespectful punk. So mind your manners, Dressler. Or else." His threatening tone abated, but not by much. "Now, I have testimony that you assaulted Kelley Barnes and Jack Guicherit during the 'Bitchmas.' According to them, you shot Barnes in the chest with a paintball gun, which is not allowed on campus, and bit Guicherit on the face hard enough to draw blood. Do you deny these claims?"

Ethan made a slurping sound ála Hannibal Lecter and enjoyed the resulting look of revulsion from Palmstrom. "Those claims are indeed correct."

"And why did you do this?"

Ethan's tone hardened. "What else was I supposed to do? I was watching a dear friend of mine being practically beaten to death. I am not strong. I don't know any martial arts techniques. The police weren't coming, and there was nobody around to help me. I did what I could."

"And why couldn't you just keep shooting at them with your paintball gun?"

"Because, Mr. Palmstrom," Ethan started. He leaned in with a sadistic smile on his face, which, to his disappointment, seemingly failed to make his interrogator anxious. "What good would a paintball gun have done me if I had been rushed? None. I had to use fear, which is reputably the most powerful weapon in the world; you don't have to have heard that from a movie to know it." Ethan's smile disappeared and he leaned back in his chair, speaking once again in his usual cold, analytical voice. "I had to act like an animal in order to reduce them to their own basic animal instincts. Fight or flight. It was the only way to save Michelle Smith." He waved a hand at Palmstrom. "Regardless. Punish me if you must; I don't care."

Palmstrom pushed his glasses up his nose and cleared his throat. "Well, thank you for your testimony, Mr. Dressler. But considering your confessed actions, it's highly unlikely that your future at Fielding is assured."

"No kidding." As Ethan placed his hands on the desk to push himself up, he caused the folder, as well as all the papers contained within it, to flip into the air before falling to the floor. Ethan made a clumsy attempt to catch it and missed.

Palmstrom gave an irritated sigh as he moved to pick them up.

"My apologies," Ethan said as he crouched to assist the Englishman.

"Uh huh," said Palmstrom, doubting his sincerity.

After they had collected everything, Ethan said flatly, "Have a good day, Palmstrom."

"Good luck, Dressler. You're certainly going to need it," Palmstrom replied coolly. He watched Ethan leave, and quickly forgot about him when he started to plan his approach towards the next offender.

XXXX

When Ethan returned to his dorm room, he immediately sat in his chair, leaned forward, and rubbed his temples to help him remember. It had taken him a mere three and a half seconds to look at each and every paper on that floor and memorize their contents. In his mind, he carefully examined each one. Eventually, he recalled one in particular: a list of names under bold letters that read **STUDENTS TO BE QUESTIONED.** He soon realized that, to his disgust, not one of the students he saw assaulting Michelle were even listed to be interrogated. They would escape punishment. _Not if I can help it._

By the end of the night, Ethan had identified all his targets by looking through the last edition of the Fielding Face Book. He was astonished to find that three of them were ex-Mafia, including the former Viper who'd tried to confront him.

An idea formed in Ethan's head, one that made him lick his lips in cruel anticipation. It was a half-formed idea, the results of which he couldn't quite predict. A final retaliation. The last prank. He went to his computer and began to type...

XXXX

Dmitri Vagin opened his dorm room door and found himself being faced by two police officers. He felt a stab of fright and surprise, but didn't let it show.

"Yes?" he asked hesitantly.

"Is your name Dmitri Vagin?" the first cop asked.

"Yeah, why?"

The second cop said, "You're under arrest for several counts of conspiracy to commit assault and breaking and entering. We're going to have to ask you to turn around and put your hands behind your back, please."

For a few moments, Dmitri and just stared at the two police officers, open-mouthed and stunned. Then, without even thinking, he ducked down and bolted past the first officer, who quickly caught up with him, pinned him to the ground, and handcuffed him before reading off his Miranda rights.

Dmitri's thoughts raced; why was he being arrested? Why now? Someone who'd been in the Mafia must have ratted him out; who?

The next thing he knew, he was being led outside towards an awaiting police van. To his shock and horror, several other former members of the Mafia were inside as well: Ben Nielsen. Terry Wicklemore. Ryan Young. Kevin Crowley, Gregory Barnes, Daniel Palmer, and three more whose names Dmitri didn't know. He noticed three more vans nearby, with more former members of the Mafia being led into them. He realized that it was some kind of crackdown.

The policemen put Dmitri into the van. Right before they closed the doors on him, he looked into the crowd of curious students watching it all unfold and for a brief moment saw Julian Townes looking back at him, looking as utterly bemused as he was before the van doors closed.

Ethan watched from his window as his targets were led away into vans. He'd sent the Lawndale Police Department detailed files about the actions each individual Viper and ex-Mafia member had committed, as well as his own personal testimony for the unaffiliated students who had attacked Michelle. He knew there was no guarantee that anything would actually happen to them, but still.

And yet he felt no satisfaction as he saw his revenge unfold, and that disheartened him. Ethan had hoped to receive at least some kind of comfort lately, and this just wasn't cutting it. _What, then? _He thought for a moment of telling Gage and Wehrung that Michelle had been avenged, but he knew Gage would probably tell him off again. And Wehrung...he didn't want another rejection. He considered calling them anyway to tell them that Michelle would be avenged. But if that knowledge didn't even comfort _him_, what was the point? Feeling hopeless, Ethan slunk into his chair. His face fell into his hands.

There was a knock at his door. Slowly, lethargically, Ethan got up and went to answer it. It was Roan, wearing a badge on her chest that read **Student Governor.** Her face was an emotionless mask. She handed him an envelope.

"That's for you," she said right before her fist dug into his stomach. Ethan fell sputtering to the floor. "And that's for my friends." She strode off. He'd forgotten she had been in the Mafia.

He didn't need to open the envelope to know what was in it. Lying on the floor, trying to ignore the pain in his gut, Ethan could only think, _Now what am I supposed to do? _

XXXX

Later that night, Karis Chapman showed up to Harris Studios in the middle of dinner. Gage invited her in, and she took a seat amongst the gathered: him, Michael Harris, and the Wehrung siblings. Beef stew was being served with flat Ultra-Cola. After everyone had finished their meals, Karis asked if she could talk to her friends. She followed Gage and Wehrung up to their room, where she told them both, "I'm leaving Fielding."

They didn't blame her, but the sudden announcement took them aback nevertheless. "Really?" said Wehrung. "I mean, can you even do that? You know, 'cause of your parents?"

"Until a week ago, no, I couldn't. Then my dad sent over his sycophant, and he made it so students could drop out of Fielding without the consent of their parents in light of recent events." Karis nearly smiled, for the irony wasn't lost on her.

"So what are you going to do?" Gage asked.

"Probably go to Grove Hills," she said. "It's a little more low key than Fielding, or so I hear. And as much as I love the idea of going back to London, going up to my parents like a total badass and saying right to their stupid faces, 'I'm back. Deal with it,' I've got a feeling that wouldn't end all that well for me."

"No, probably not," Wehrung said.

"You're always welcome to stay here," Gage offered.

She held up a hand to decline politely. "Nah. I think that for once, I wanna try to make it on my own. But I'll still come to hang out and stuff, don't worry." What Karis really meant was that for once, she didn't want to feel like she was dragging anyone down with her.

"Well, I think you'll thrive there. You _are_ an ASP, after all," Wehrung said with a smile.

She looked at him and smiled. "Thanks, Alex. I'm sorry that you're leaving."

"It's okay," he said, although he didn't quite look like he meant it. "Me and Zara pretty much feel the same. Screw Fielding. And it'll be nice to be back in Mass."

"I'll miss ya, dude," said Gage.

"Hey, let's not get too down yet," said Wehrung. "Won't have to go for another couple months. Until then, we have a lot of crap to do." He almost said, _Like see if we can help Michelle,_ but knew that saying something like that was in bad taste. "Go to Dega. Finally check out the Mall of the Millennium. Prank DeMartino. Crap like that."

"I'm always up for more crap," Karis said, which made Gage snicker. "We'll make it the most bloody awesome two months ever!" she declared.

"Amen!" said Gage.

"Woo!" Wehrung whooped playfully.

**Two Months Later **

"Boy, didn't think it would go that fast," Wehrung said. Beside him, Zara, Gage, and Karis all sat in fraying seats inside the Baltimore-Washington International Airport.

"And when ya think about it, not much happened," Gage said. "Apart from maybe Roan graduating."

"When I come back to visit, we gotta do more stuff," Wehrung said.

"Amen," Karis said.

"Flight 481 for Boston will be boarding in five minutes. All passengers please start making your way to the booth to have your tickets checked," droned a female voice over the intercom.

Wehrung turned to his left, where his sister was excitedly chattering into a cell phone. He kicked her foot and she cried out in surprise rather than pain. "The hell?" she exclaimed.

He nodded to the terminal. "Let's go."

Zara sighed reluctantly, more from the fact that she had depart from her cushy airport chair than leave the place she had lived at for almost three years. "Okay, fine." She picked up her luggage and made her way towards the line.

Wehrung stood up, as did Karis and Gage. "Well, I guess this is it, guys," he said. "It's been a ball."

"Don't go walking into the Atlantic by accident," Gage teased. Wehrung had decided to wear his eyepatch again, although he knew his parents would immediately object to it.

"Har har," Wehrung said, smirking. He pulled Gage into a hug.

"Goodbye, brother."

In the years that followed, neither of them was able to remember who said it. Sometimes they thought it was both of them. Nonetheless, both of them felt they had been suddenly been punched in the stomach, but they both managed not to show it.

Wehrung was brought out of his trance by Karis, who also hugged him. He couldn't see behind her sunglasses, but her eyes shone at him. "I wish you all the best, mate," she said.

"Thanks," he said with a grateful smile.

"Brother! C'mon!" he heard Zara call.

He gave them both a slight bow and picked up his luggage. Just as he was about to leave, Karis suddenly darted in front of him, a concerned look on her face. "You promise to visit Michelle?" she asked.

He nodded sincerely. "Every weekend." Salem was a mere hour of a drive away from Maine. Even if it were ten hours away, he'd still make sure to check in on her regularly.

Karis breathed a sigh of relief. "Okay," she said, stepping aside for him.

Wehrung moved up to the line with his sister, trying not to look back.

When they were both on the plane, Zara immediately began to complain. "Aw man, these seats don't lean back. And no magazines? What kinda crap airline did mom and dad order for us brother...brother?"

Zara looked at him and saw that he was crying. He tore off his now-moist eyepatch and covered his eyes with his hand. "Brother?" said Zara urgently. "What's wrong?"

He wiped his eyes. "I...I'm just not ready to go yet."

"Aw." She leaned over in her seat and hugged him. "It's okay," she said. "You'll see them again."

He sniffed. "Yeah. Yeah." He hoped it was true.

From the ground, right outside the terminal, Gage and Karis watched the planes take off as they waited for the bus that would take them back to Lawndale.  
"Which one do you think is his?" Karis asked.

"No way to tell."

"...Gage?"

"Yeah?"

"I feel sad."

"Me too. These last couple months haven't been the best."

"Do you think it's going to get better?" she wondered.

"I think so. I think that...as long as we have each other, no matter where we are, we can get through anything."

"Cause we're ASPS, right?"

He shook his head. "No, friend. I think...the ASPS died a long time ago."

As she listened to his words, she watched another plane take off. That one was Wehrung's, although she didn't know it. She turned to Gage and flashed a toothy grin. "And as we've definitely learned by now, friends can kick immeasurable amounts of ass when we put our minds to it."

Gage laughed. "I think you're getting a bit rougher around the edges, Karis."

She slapped him on the back, which took him somewhat off-guard. "Nah. You're just going soft," she said with a laugh.


	6. The End

**The Start of Senior Year**

Daria Morgendorffer regretted her decision every waking moment, although she still found it hard to forgive Jane. Forgiving herself was twice as hard. "Jane wasn't _that_ caught up into Gage," she kept telling herself, word for word, every night as she lay awake in bed. "You were her best friend. You came first. And you left anyways. Idiot." And every morning she promised herself she'd go and talk to Jane and apologize, and suck up Gage's presence. But she couldn't do it. How petty.

She excused it with both the fact that she had to mentally prepare herself to go to Grove Hills and that Jane herself never tried to talk to her ever since their...separation? Daria wasn't quite sure how to put it into words. _Then again, Jane's probably thinking the same about me. _

"Just talk to her about it," her mother had advised her one night, after Daria's insecurity had finally reached a boiling point. "If she doesn't forgive you, then she's not worth having as a friend."

_Easy for you to say, mom. You don't have any friends…at least, none that I've seen._ Daria realized that she had never seen her parents engaging in any social interactions...ever. _Do my parents even have local friends? Huh, never thought about that. _

"We're here, kiddo!" her father cheerily announced as they pulled up to the front gate of Grove Hills, snapping Daria out of her contemplative state. She looked out the window, watching as her soon-to-be classmates. Like her, they were wearing blue polo shirts and khakis as they walked rigidly up the path to the main hall. Eyeing the iron gate they had passed, Daria thought, _The prisoners go marching one by one, hurrah, hurrah._

Jake pulled up along the curb behind another car and turned in his seat, smiling at his daughter. "We're so proud that you're challenging yourself, kiddo! Have a great first day!"

"Thanks dad," she said nonchalantly, stepping out of the car with her backpack. She waved goodbye to Jake as he drove off, and immediately headed to her first class. As Daria progressed through the puke-pink hallways of the Main Hall, she saw a freckled student with a poofy head of hair and the meanest expression she'd seen on a human being since Quinn lost her eyelash-curler. He spat into the face of a brown-haired boy with bright blue eyes. "We've always been superior to you," said the freckled boy, who was smiling viciously. "After all, it's a well-known fact that over thirty percent of Grove Hills students are Fielding rejects."

_So what does that say about you?_ Daria thought as it dawned on her that the freckled boy was probably one of the dozens of students that had been expelled from Fielding and had come to Grove Hills as a result; there had been a news article about in _The Weekly Trimming_, Grove Hill's student newspaper. Daria had picked up a copy at her orientation the previous week; she had been admittedly impressed by it.

The brown-haired boy said something back to the freckled guy. Daria didn't hear, so she was slightly puzzled as to why the freckled boy took a swing at his adversary. As the confrontation devolved into a melee, Daria immediately made herself scarce. _Looks like I've traded one zoo for another. But if I play my cards right, maybe I can be the zookeeper for once. It would certainly make for a refreshing change of pace._

As the students began to form a circle around the two combatants and chant, "Brawl! Brawl!" Daria thought, _Who knows? It might be pretty easy. _

She made her way to her first class, Joanna White's Advanced Government class. Daria was immediately struck by the almost amusing sight of all the students in nearly identical poses; every one of them sat at their desk, unspeaking, staring straight ahead, with pencils and notebooks placed neatly before them on their desks, waiting patiently for Ms. White's arrival.

As Daria made her way to an empty seat, she wondered if this apparent loss of all individuality was due to the rigorous demands of Grove Hills, or Ms. White's reputation. She hadn't _heard_ of White being particularly stern or rough. _I'll have to wait and see, I guess,_ Daria thought. Right as she approached the unoccupied desk she'd chosen, she briefly glanced at the guy she would be sitting in front of. He was clean-shaven with a buzz-cut, unnaturally pale, had a long scar that traveled down from his forehead to below his right eye before surging upwards again and splitting his hair apart into two unequal halves. If she had taken a closer look at his eyes, she would have thought they looked almost mournful.

Just before the bell rang, a woman with unkempt gray hair sticking out in all sorts of unnatural patterns ran into the room, hopped into her chair, and carelessly tossed her own backpack onto her desk. Almost every student in the class looked up at her and went for their pencils in tandem.

"Goooood mornin' people! Last year! Woo! Now, for the sake of time, don't worry, I'm not going to do any of those stupid icebreakers those other weirdos make you all do! So just to test your knowledge, verbal POP QUIZ!" she screamed.

_But I didn't study,_ Daria thought dryly.

"Can anyone name an effective way a government may be able to quell dissent?" asked Mrs. White.

"Well, shooting dissenters often gets the message across," Daria noted.

Behind her, Ethan suddenly picked up his head, as though someone had just called his name.

Although Mrs. White chuckled, there was a smidge of discomfort in her voice. "Yes, I suppose that's true, but that would apply more to a fascist government. Actually, that gives me an idea!"

_Her very first._

"What are some primary characteristics of a fascist dictatorship?"

Daria answered without waiting to be called on. "A massive cult of personality. The ability to quell the masses. An intelligent, driven leader. I'm working on it."

Something was happening inside Ethan's head. Slowly, he began to realize that he had found someone..._interesting_. It had been so long.

After class, Ethan immediately moved to talk to Daria. He caught up to her outside in the hallway. "Pardon me," he said.

"Yes?" said Daria.

"Just making sure, were those promises of yours of dominating the school true or a pathetic attempt at drawing attention to yourself?"

Daria crossed her arms over her chest. "And why would you care? Who are you?"

"Who do you think?"

"You could be an a-hole."  
Gage's last words came back to him, but Ethan grit his teeth and replied, "Do I look like one of those a-hole types?"

"Honestly? You look like an army brat that wandered in here by mistake."

Ethan shrugged. "Fair enough. And why are you here at Grove Hills, then?"

"To make friends, obviously," Daria said. Ethan snorted. "So how come you got the boot from Fielding?" she asked. Before he could ask how she could tell he'd been from there, Daria said, "I could hear you taking notes behind me. You wrote faster than anyone else."

"Impressive. Well, I didn't have to be here if I wanted; it wouldn't have made any difference to me."

"You're not answering my question."

"Apologies. I got the boot," Ethan said, "because I _chose_ to get the boot. I wouldn't be here if I hadn't."

"I thought you said you didn't care whether or not you came here," Daria said.

"Well, for starters, I can indeed confirm that I said that," Ethan said, receiving a raised eyebrow from Daria in response, "and I can argue that by not fighting my expulsion, I chose to arrive at Grove Hills."

"Or it could imply you're just a lazy bum that didn't deserve Fielding," Daria retorted.

Ethan was taken slightly aback; he didn't even know this girl's name, yet she was already back-talking him. "Well, girl with gigantic glasses," he said, "you have spirit, to be sure. Out of curiosity, do you plan on putting that spirit to good use?"

"Well, I can use it to ask why do you care?"

"It would be a shame if it weren't utilized for practical applications."

"Doing what?"

"You tell me."

Daria gave it a moment's thought. "Well, a zookeeper would be nice."

That answer threw Ethan off. "What?" he asked with a confused look.

Daria smirked. "To make it comprehensible for you, I was using a metaphor." A look of comprehension dawned on Ethan's face, and he gave a wicked smile. _This guy really needs a new dental plan_, Daria thought when she saw the incisors. _But appearance aside, he should make for a good pawn._

_She is going to go down in flames, assuming she's even serious,_ Ethan thought. _No one can hold an entire student body in their grip. We…._ Ethan took a pained breath when he remembered that there was no 'we' anymore. ._..I tried. Still, hanging around this girl should prove entertaining. _He extended his hand to her. "Well, what say we put my 180 point IQ and your spirit to the test, shall we? I'm Ethan."

She shook it. "Daria. And I appreciate your humoring me."

_Hm. _"Not at all. Well, Daria. Partners?"

"Perhaps. Let's see how things go with our attempt at world domination. Worse comes to worse, we could always be rivals."

"Now wouldn't that be stimulating. Well, Daria, if you wish to conquer Grove Hills, or at the very least discuss Mussolini's rise to power and its repercussions…" a blonde girl flittered into Ethan's mind, but he had forgotten her name. "...come talk to me at the cafeteria. I should be pretty easy to find."

"Yeah; we can talk about what dangerous substances to use on the students and the like. And if the lights go out, I assume those eyeballs of yours glow."

"Most likely. Goodbye for now."

"Goodbye." They walked their separate ways.

Something nagged at the back of Ethan's mind. He found a corner with a bench, sat down, and concentrated. _Dangerous substances...Mussolini..._

It suddenly came back to him. Over two years ago ago, Gage, Wehrung, and Michelle had lured that little brat Sue Bentley to Underhill, dumped an entire bucket of green slime over her, and tricked the administration into thinking it had been a liquidized form of one of the school's man-made super-viruses. It had been the first prank they'd done without him, and one of his favorites. Gage, ever the artist, had gotten the whole thing on tape. Wehrung, being the ever-persistent bug that he was, had made him jog all the way there. And Michelle...smart, crafty Michelle had planned the whole thing.

A wave of guilt washed over Ethan as he saw her again, happy and full of guile, winking knowingly as she expertly twirled her cane between her fingers. He still wrestled with the twisting feeling in his gut; he still couldn't decide if what happened to her was his fault or not. That indecision scared him. The idea that Michelle would never awaken scared him far more. He didn't realize it yet, but Ethan hoped that whatever this Daria girl brought to his life would distract him from this fear. He wanted it out of his mind, until the day he could find it in himself to hope that the ASPS...that his friends would forgive him. He yearned for that redemption.

_Remember Gennaro._

Tracy Gennaro; she had been Ethan and Dylan's counselor. Neither of them wanted to go to her meetings, which took them both out of their favorite classes and had been deemed mandatory by both the administration and their parents. Back then, Ethan was not aloof on purpose; he was just very shy. But he also feared getting close to anyone, feared letting people take advantage of his emotions. It took him weeks to finally speak a single word to Dylan, but after he finally dropped his guard, it led to their friendship and brief stint as a couple. Those were some of the happiest years of his life.

_Perhaps...she doesn't just have to be a distraction. Might not be so bad._

**That's a wrap.**


End file.
